Incoherent frequency-selective multiplexing holographic encryption by using a triple-beam setup

Inspired by the wavefront masking of the scattering medium, we proposed a multiplexed coded aperture holographic encryption method. The incoherent multiplexed phase mask encryption experiments involved in the method are realized for what we believe to be the first time. From the holograms, we extracted three images using the frequency-selective phase iterative coding algorithm we purposely put forward. Through the theoretical analysis of frequency-selective phase coding, the constructed linear system can recover the original image well. We verified the security of the cryptography using structural similarity index measurements, key space, key sensitivity, and axial multiplexing. Through the theoretical analysis of frequency-selective phase coding, we think the present triple-multiplexed cryptography can be directly extended to multiple-multiplexed cases and applied to multi-image encryption. It may cause a paradigm shift in applications such as incoherent image encryption, wavefront acquisition in scattering, information hiding, and fast target identification.