Phase stepping through polarizing modulation in electronic speckle pattern interferometry

We have demonstrated a speckle out-of-plane interferometer that employs phase-stepping procedures by means of polarization modulation. The system generates circular polarization states with opposite signs at each arm of the system, which overlap at the output of the interferometer, to generate phase shifts operating a conventional linear polarizer; the emerging polarization states have been analyzed to obtain the shifts needed to process the optical phase. The phase-stepping technique is demonstrated with a two-step algorithm to measure out-of-plane displacement on a flat metal plate.