Phase retrieval from modulus data

R. A. Gonsalves*
EIKONIX Corporation, 103 Terrace Hall Avenue, Burlington, Massachusetts 01803

(Received 22 March 1976)

Phase retrieval implies extraction of the phase of a complex signal f from its modulus Ifl. We give
examples where an additional constraint is imposed: knowledge of the modulus of F, the Fourier transform of
f. The retrieval is accomplished by computer processing of samples of If and Fl. The problems of
noisy data and nonuniqueness are addressed.
I. INTRODUCTION
The phase retrieval problem has attracted considerable
interest in recent years because of its importance in a
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J. Opt. Soc. Am., Vol. 66, No. 9, September 1976

variety of applications. 1-17 Among these are Fouriertransform spectroscopy, x-ray crystallography, particle scattering, speckle interferometry, lens testing,
single-sideband communications, and design of
Copyright 1976 by the Optical Society of America

96

radar signals.

Pohnse

The essence of the problem is to determine the phase

of a complex functionf (x) from knowledge of its squared
modulus (Cx). It is well known that the phase is not
unique unless there are further restrictions placed on
f (x). (Reference 11 gives a good review of the literature. ) For example, it has been shown that if f (x) is
band imited and minimum phase there exists a solution
whose construction involves the use of the Hilbert transform. It has also been shown that if (x) is band limited, so also isf(x), and, further, if the zeroes of 4(x)
are real the phase can be extracted uniquely. 4'5
Hoenders14 identifies another case where the phase is
unique. He starts with a complex g(x) of finite extent.
Its Fourier transform G(y) is, therefore, "band limited"
and extends from - -o to oo. G(y) is truncated to form a
pupil function F(y) which has compact support and is
analytic over the aperture. Its inverse Fourier transform is a complexf (x) which can be specified in terms
of (x) (except for a constant phase and a 1 sign ambiguity).
In this paper we show how we have been able to extract the phase when one has knowledge of the modulus
of both f (x) and its Fourier transform F(y). 10,15-17 An
example of where this might be useful is the case of a
clear aperture where I F(y)I is unity over the aperture
and zero elsewhere. Here the pupil function consists
only of phase aberrations.
The retrieval is accomplished in one of two ways. The
first algorithm uses a space-frequency iterative technique that was first proposed by Gerchberg and Saxton' 5
and was independently developed by the author as a
modification to some related work. 18,19 The second
method uses a variable-metric parametric search of
the Fletcher-Powell type. 20

151)

I50-

FIG. 1. Polynomial-phase reconstruction with space-frequency

iterations (NF=9, NX=64, NI=27).

111. ALGORITHMS AND EXAMPLES

First we describe the space-frequency iterative technique.
(a) Given If(x)I define atrialf1 (x),
f(x) = If(x)I efi `x)

(6)

where 031Cx) is a realization of a random process. In

practice, we sample fl(x) at uniform intervals in x and
the ,1 samples are uniformly distributed from 0 to 27T
and independent.
(b) Fourier transformf 1 (x) and set

F2 (y)= IF(v)| [Fj(y)/I|Fi(y)I].

(7)

Thus, F 2 (y) has the correct modulus and a phase which

is partly derived from If (x) 1.

II. PROBLEM STATEMENT

f (x) and F(y) are a unique Fourier transform pair:

FC(y) =fdxf (x) exp(- i2rxy),

(c) Inverse Fourier transform F 2 (y) and set

f3(x) = If (x)I[lf(x)/ If 2 (x) I] .

(1)

(8)

Now f 3 (x) is influenced by IF(y) I.

f (x)= fdy F(y) exp(i2lgxy) .

Given If(x)I and I F(y)I, find

where

(2)
(x)the real phase of f (x),

f x) = If x) I exp[ij3(x)] .

(3)

In an optical application, F(y) is the pupil function

across the exit pupil of an imaging system and
O(X) = If (X) 1

(I) (Y)=fdvF*(v)F(v+y) .
The system OTF is 1(by) divided by D(0).
J. Opt. Soc. Am., Vol. 66, No. 9, September 1976

IF(r)I ={1,
,

In <1

(9)

IYI >1 .

Let

F(y) = IF(y) Ieo (Y),

(4)

is the observed (incoherent) image. The Fourier transform OCy) of (x) will be proportional to the system optical-transfer function (OTF) if the source is a narrow
line. Also, D(y) is the autocorrelation function of the
pupil function

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(d) Repeat the process until it converges. 15 We show

two examples of this technique where

(5)

(10)

so that 0(y) is the phase aberration over the aperture

(the "input" phase). 21 The two cases are shown in Figs.
1 and 2. In these two figures and in Fig. 4, NF, NX,
and NI are the number of nonzero samples of IF(y) I
[and 9(y)], the number of samples of If(x)I, and the
number of iterations, respectively.
In Fig. 1 the input phase was a third-order polynomi-

al. The algorithm yielded a phase that differed from

the input by a constant 50 plus or minus about 30.
In Fig. 2 the input phase was random as shown.
R. A. Gonsalves

It
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200'

I (M

-i

Frequency

FIG. 4. Reconstruction with space-frequency iterations based

on noisy data (NF 9, NX=64, NI=9).
Frequcncy

-1

ei"OF0*(-

50

FIG. 2. Random-phase reconstruction with space-frequency

iterations (NF=9, NX=256, NI=27).

was recovered to within about 50 (plus a fixed constant).

As a further test of the algorithm we assumed a
IF(y) I as shown in Fig. 3 and a quadratic phase as
shown. The algorithm extracted the phase with about
the same accuracy as before.
In these first examples we assumed that If (x) I and
I F(y) I were measured in a noise-free environment.
However, we have done limited testing of the algorithm
based on the addition of signal-dependent noise to samples of If 1. The noise samples were independent and
were uniformly distributed over 0. 1 If (x) I 1/2. Thus
the noise variance is
o2(X) = I(0.

2)2 lf(x)lj

=y)
IF()

I ei@e0i(v-)

(13)

has inverse Fourier transform e"eOf *(x), which clearly

has the same modulus as f (x). This is the ambiguity
which Hoenders resolves by requiring the further knowledge that IF(1) I > I F(- 1) I (or the converse).
The second technique uses a parametric model for the
phase. For example, we set
Op(y)=ply +p 2 y2 +p 3y +p 4y4

(14)

and search over the 4-tuple

(15)

P= (P 1 ,P 2 ,P 3 ,P 4 )
to extract the phase.
M= f

Our metric is

dy I D(v)- -p(y)i

(16)

where @b(y) is the Fourier transform of If(x)12 and 'I,(y)

( 1)

The resulting input and output phases are shown in

Fig. 4.
Here for the first time (Fig. 4) we encounter the solution
O0 (Y) =

(12)

-O(-Y) .

This is allowable if IF(y) I has even symmetry since

Input Phase

I F(y) I

18(1 -I
\
1 to #

frequency

- 200'

I
-I

-1

FIG. 3. Asymmetric modulus and phase of Fey).

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J. Opt. Soc. Am., Vol. 66, No. 9, September 1976

FIG. 5. Polynomial-phase reconstruction by parametric

search (NF = 11, NP =4, NI=50).
R. A. Gonsalves

963

to implement the Hoenders theory will be presented

later.
I .('

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Output Phn-se.

-1

FIG. 6.

ly)

freq..e..y

Random-phase reconstruction by parametric search

(NF=10, NP= 10, NP= 10, NI= 50).

is the Fourier transform of a trial Ip(x) 12.

In practice,

we start with a trial Fp(y),

Fp
, (lo) = I F(y) I ei Op(V)

(17)

and calculate 4)p(y) as in Eq. (5). We use a modified

Fletcher-Powell algorithm to adjust p until MVI
is minimized.
Two examples of the use of this algorithm are shown
in Figs. 5 and 6. Both used the IF(y)I of Eq. (9). For
the "polynomial" example of Fig. 5 we used p as in (14).
Note that this example yielded the symmetry condition
of (12) [00 is zero since 0(0) was constrained to be zero
in both input and output]. For the "random" example of
Fig. 6 we used a 10-tuple p, one parameter for each
frequency point.
IV. DISCUSSION
On the CDC 6400 computer the space-frequency iteration technique took about 12 s for the random-phase
examples and about 2 s for the polynomial-phase examples. The parameter search technique took about
25 s for all examples. This was longer than the first
method probably because we used an inefficient crosscorrelation algorithm.
Theoretical aspects of the techniques (uniqueness",
and convergence' 3 ' 15) are under study. It was encouraging that the algorithms never converged to a "wrong"
phase indicating that a ripe theory exists for the problem as posed.
An extension of the algorithms to two dimensions and
to the imaging problem is straightforward and is underway. In the imaging problem an object s(x) produces
the observable s(x)*P(x). We have been able to extract
the phase of the pupil function when s(x) is known.
The algorithms were also used on some experimentally determined (x)'s to extract the phase. These results, the theoretical aspects of the problem mentioned
above, the imaging results, and a report on an attempt

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J. Opt. Soc. Am., Vol. 66, No. 9, September 1976

Discussions with E. O'Neill, E. Wolf, P. Considine,

and J. Finley have been illuminating and encouraging.
A. J. Devaney suggested this area of research, guided
me to the literature, and provided continuing interest
and enthusiasm.
*Also with Northeastern University, Boston, Mass.
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21
0ur earlier discussion centered on extraction of P3(x) in the
spatial domain. But we find it more intuitive to present
examples where one determines 0 (,y) in the frequency domain.

R. A. Gonsalves

964