Correlation between intensity and phase in monochromatic light

Abstract

Analytical expressions to describe the phase gradient of monochromatic light by means of the three-dimensional intensity distribution are derived. With these formulas it is shown that the two-dimensional phase gradient in a plane can be completely determined from noninterferometric intensity measurements if the light propagates strictly in one direction. The analytical expressions are verified by means of numerical investigations on simulated speckle fields, and the results are discussed with respect to common deterministic phase retrieval approaches.