System for spatial multiplexing

An off-axis interferometric system comprising:

• a first beam splitter being capable of receiving at least six beams defining a common optical path and dividing the common optical path into a sample arm and reference arm;
• first and second phase delay plates placed in the optical path of the sample and reference arms respectively, wherein the first phase delay plate is placed upstream of a sample and the second phase delay plate is capable of receiving at least six beams of the reference arm;
• wherein the first and second phase delay plates are capable of inducing (1) a phase delay between each of the at least six beams to encode each of the at least six beams with a different fringe orientation and preventing the at least six beams from interfering with each other, thereby creating at least six parallel interference channels having different interference orientations on a detector;
• and (2) a different phase delay between the at least six beams of the reference and sample arms;
• and
• a second beam splitter/combiner placed downstream of the second phase delay plate and being capable of receiving at least six delayed reference beams and at least six delayed sample beams being indicative of the sample and combining them accordingly,
• the presence and the position of the first and second beam splitters and of the first and second phase delay plates one with respect to the other in the optical path of the sample and reference arms respectively enables to optically multiplex at least six interferometric channels in a single camera exposure and to compress at least six parallel complex wavefronts into a single multiplexed off-axis hologram containing linear off-axis fringes of at least six different orientations.