Totagraphy: coherent diffractive/digital information reconstruction by iterative phase recovery using a second camera imaging the input plane

A method for recovering phase information of an input from a coherent wave, the method comprising:

• providing at least one transformation unit with an input plane and an output plane;
• providing at least two masks one of which is a unity mask, each of the at least two masks configured to be disposed at the input plane;
• providing an optical sensor configured to detect and record an array of coherent wave intensities of the input plane;
• applying the coherent wave at the input plane separately to the optical sensor and to each of the at least two masks to generate a modified input from each of the masks;
• passing the modified inputs through the at least one transformation unit, wherein the at least one transformation unit performs a generalized Fourier transform on each modified input to produce at the output plane a transformed modified input from each modified input;
• recording amplitude values at an array of points derived from each transformed modified input to produce phasorgrams;
• associating a phase value with each point on each phasorgram to form a plurality of complex phasorgrams;
• and
• iteratively processing the plurality of complex phasorgrams to repeatedly determine a single estimate of the input in which an array of amplitudes derived from the array of recorded coherent wave intensities is used as the amplitudes in determining the single estimate, until convergence is achieved to produce a totagram constituting a reconstructed input with amplitude and phase information.