Accuracy of phase determination with unequal reference phase shift

In the fringe-scanning methods such as the three- and four-bucket methods, the phase of a reference wave is generally changed at equal intervals from 0 to 2π. In practice, however, it is difficult or almost impossible for some interferometers, such as the dynamic zone plate interferometer, to realize an equal phase shift and to make a full scanning of 2π, which are necessary for discrete Fourier transform analysis. We show that even in such a case, phases in an interferogram can be obtained by using a Fourier analysis in a continuous space, and we analyze the accuracy of the phase determination in case of additive noise.