Dependence of fringe contrast on phase statistics in speckle correlation interferometry

Object deformation-related phase measurements obtained using speckle correlation interferometry are limited by low fringe contrast factor values. In this paper, the statistical property of speckle phase - related to conditions of scattering from optically rough surfaces - is outlined to elucidate this factor. A series of computations using random number generation with a Gaussian deviate is performed to verify this approach and to obtain numerical estimates of the fringe contrast factor.