DHI contemporary methodologies: A review and frontiers

• Published in: Optics and lasers in engineering 2020-12, Vol.135, p.106184, Article 106184
• Main Authors: Flores-Moreno, Jorge Mauricio, Torre-Ibarra, Manuel De la, Hernandez-Montes, Maria del Socorro, Santoyo, Fernando Mendoza
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0143-8166; 1873-0302
• DOI: 10.1016/j.optlaseng.2020.106184

•We report at great length breakthroughs throughout the last fifty years in holography and digital holographic interferometry.•We review studies of changes in refractive index in transparent media that opened the gate for bio-medical applications.•Also, state-of-the-art applications in: deformation-strain analysis, surface shape, microscopy, flows of liquids and gases.•We include current research on DHM techniques, mainly in the characterization of bio-mechanical properties of bio-samples.•Since DHI systems have reached such high level of confidence, makes them suitable as measuring tool in several disciplines During the decade of the 1940’s, an interferometric technique was sought capable of ameliorating the intrinsic aberrations present in electron microscopes. Such technique, used with ad-hoc experimental conditions, gave birth to the field of holography. The capabilities of holography allow the precise reconstruction of a wavefront distorted by a particular sample under observation. At that time, the practical demonstration of holography remained unexplored due to the lack of either photon or electron coherent sources. Two remarkable developments came into being in the 1960’s: the invention of the laser and the introduction of the first video cameras. Then with the use of both technological breakthroughs at that time and the gathering of data from fringe patterns stored by computers, it was possible to measure dynamic object properties. Nearly half a century has passed and today holography has evolved as an enormously reach subject that serves the scientific, academic, technology and engineering communities in ever increasing areas of application. In this paper we will present some of the breakthroughs throughout the course of the last fifty years of holography, a journey that smoothed and boost over the development of digital holographic interferometry and digital holographic microscopy in the last decades. The contributions of holography today are almost countless since it is possible to reconstruct the intensity and phase of electromagnetic fields that in turn can be stored, transmitted, manipulated and analyzed in a computer. Finally, we will review research studies on changes in the refractive index in transparent media that opened the gate for bio and medical applications; as well as the state of the art in applications on object surface deformation and strain analysis, surface shape measurement, microscopy and flows in liquids and gases.