Analysis and interpretation of the Seidel aberration coefficients in digital holography

The most commonly used configurations in digital holography-namely Fourier holograms, Fresnel holograms, and image-plane holograms-are analyzed with respect to Seidel's wave aberration theory. This analysis is performed by taking into account the phase terms involved in the recording and reconstruction processes. The combined phase term from both processes is compared with the Gaussian-reference sphere, from which the wave aberration terms can be obtained. In conjunction with the analysis, for each of the aberration terms, conditions can be set to eliminate them. Wave aberrations are plotted to show how strongly different setups are affected.