System and method for recovering phase information of a wave front

A method of recovering phase information of a wave front comprising the steps of:

• (a) generating N sets of intensity data by phase shifting the wave front N different times by N different known phase shifts;
• (b) converting the N sets of intensity data to N sets of amplitude data;
• (c) associating estimated phases with the N sets of amplitude data, thereby generating N first estimated wave fronts;
• (d) generating N transformed wave fronts by Inverse Fourier transforming each of the N first estimated wave fronts;
• (e) generating N second estimated wave fronts by subtracting the known phase shifts from their respective set of transformed data;
• (f) generating an average estimated wave front by averaging the N second estimated wave fronts;
• (g) generating N third estimated wave fronts by adding the known phase shifts to the average estimated wave front;
• (h) generating N fourth estimated wave fronts by Fourier transforming the N third estimated wave fronts;
• (i) generating N corrected wave fronts by correcting each of the N fourth estimated wave fronts using the respective one of the N sets of amplitude data;
• and
• using the N corrected wave fronts in step (d), repeating steps (d) through (i) until the amount of correction required in step (i) is less than a predetermined amount, whereby the resulting N corrected wave fronts includes the recovered phase data.

A system for recovering phase information of a wave front of a substantially monochromatic coherent waveform comprising:

• a lens forming a representation of a wave front passing through it on an associated back focal plane (BFP) and on an image plane (IP);
• a phase filter disposed at the BFP, the phase filter imparting known phase shifts to the wave front;
• a first recording medium capturing intensities associated with the wave front representation formed at the IP;
• a second recording medium capturing intensities of the wave front representation formed at the back focal plane;
• and
• a processor recovering phase information of the wave front from the captured intensities and the known phase shifts imparted by the phase filter.

A system for recovering phase information of a wave front of a substantially monochromatic coherent waveform comprising:

• a lens forming a representation of a wave front passing through it on an associated back focal plane (BFP) and on an image plane (IP);
• a phase filter disposed at the BFP, the phase filter imparting known phase shifts to the wave front;
• a recording medium capturing intensities associated with the wave front representation formed at the IP;
• and
• a processor recovering phase information of the wave front from the captured intensities and the known phase shifts imparted by the phase filter,
• wherein the phase filter comprises a plurality of phase filters sequentially disposed at the back focal plane, the plurality of additional phase filters respectively imparting different, known, phase shifts to the wave front.

A system for recovering phase information of a wave front of a substantially monochromatic coherent waveform comprising:

• a lens forming a representation of a wave front passing through it on an associated back focal plane (BFP) and on an image plane (IP);
• a phase filter disposed at the BFP, the phase filter imparting known phase shifts to the wave front;
• a recording medium capturing intensities associated with the wave front representation formed at the IP;
• and
• a processor recovering phase information of the wave front from the captured intensities and the known phase shifts imparted by the phase filter,
• wherein the phase filter comprises one or more optical lenses.

A system for recovering phase information of a wave front of a substantially monochromatic coherent waveform comprising:

• a lens forming a representation of a wave front passing through it on an associated back focal plane (BFP) and on an image plane (IP);
• a phase filter disposed at the BFP, the phase filter imparting known phase shifts to the wave front;
• a recording medium capturing intensities associated with the wave front representation formed at the IP;
• and
• a processor recovering phase information of the wave front from the captured intensities and the known phase shifts imparted by the phase filter,
• wherein the wave front is formed of X-rays.

A system for recovering phase information of a wave front of a substantially monochromatic coherent waveform comprising:

• a lens forming a representation of a wave front passing through it on an associated back focal plane (BFP) and on an image plane (IP);
• a phase filter disposed at the BFP, the phase filter imparting known phase shifts to the wave front;
• a recording medium capturing intensities associated with the wave front representation formed at the IP;
• and
• a processor recovering phase information of the wave front from the captured intensities and the known phase shifts imparted by the phase filter,
• wherein the wave front is formed of electron beams.

A system for recovering phase information of a wave front of a substantially monochromatic coherent waveform comprising:

• a lens forming a representation of a wave front passing through it on an associated back focal plane (BFP) and on an image plane (IP);
• a phase filter disposed at the BFP, the phase filter imparting known phase shifts to the wave front;
• a recording medium capturing intensities associated with the wave front representation formed at the IP;
• and
• a processor recovering phase information of the wave front from the captured intensities and the known phase shifts imparted by the phase filter,
• wherein the phase filter comprises N phase filters sequentially disposed at the back focal plane and the recording medium captures N sets of intensity data generated by the N phase filters.