Phase retrieval refers to the use of direct measurement of intensity distribution to restore the phase and then reconstruct the wave function. A phase retrieval based on total variation with transport-of-intensity equation is presented to obtain phase information as much as possible. First the phase retrieval model is established in the case of uniform illumination

and then the problem is translated into minimum of energy functional with total variation regularization

and the finite difference Newton’s law is used to seek an optimal solution. Only the measurements of the spatial intensity of the optical wave in closely spaced planes perpendicular to the direction of propagation are needed and the sensitivity and resolution issues because of the requirements of interferometry techniques put on the spatial and temporal coherence of the optical source are avoided. The experiments show that information in the edge is kept when conducting phase retrieval.