COMPUTER-SIMULATION OF THE SCATTER PLATE INTERFEROMETER BY SCALAR DIFFRACTION THEORY

Detailed computer simulations of the scatter plate interferometer with random scatterers in the scatter plate are performed, for the first t ime to our knowledge, by use of the scalar diffraction theory in the p araxial domain. It is shown that the computer simulations produce outp ut image patterns of the expected qualitative characteristics. A quali tative comparison of the computed pattern with the experimentally obse rved pattern is presented. The effects of translation of the scatter p late and distortion and tilting of the test object are also successful ly simulated by the computer. (C) 1997 Optical Society of America.