Patent ID: 8542421

Claim:
An apparatus configured to produce a hologram of an object, said apparatus comprising: an electromagnetic radiation assembly including a diffractive electromagnetic radiation element and configured to receive a received electromagnetic radiation from the object and transmit a transmitted electromagnetic radiation based on the received electromagnetic radiation; and an image capture assembly configured to capture an image of the transmitted electromagnetic radiation, and produce the hologram of the object from the captured image, wherein the electromagnetic radiation assembly is configured to control only a phase of the transmitted electromagnetic radiation, and the electromagnetic radiation assembly further comprises a first electromagnetic radiation assembly configured to receive the received electromagnetic radiation from the object and transmit a first transformed electromagnetic radiation, the diffractive electromagnetic radiation element is configured to receive the first transformed electromagnetic radiation from the first electromagnetic radiation assembly and transmit a phase-modified electromagnetic radiation that is transformed according to a phase-modifying transmission function that controls only the phase of the phase-modified electromagnetic radiation, and a second electromagnetic radiation assembly is configured to receive the phase-modified electromagnetic radiation from the diffractive electromagnetic radiation element and transmit as second transformed electromagnetic radiation as the transmitted electromagnetic radiation.