Geometric phase-shifting for low-coherence interference microscopy

A low-coherence Linnik interference microscope using high numerical aperture optics has been constructed. The system uses a tungsten halogen lamp and Köhler illumination, with separate control over field and aperture stops, so that experiments can be conducted with a range of different operating conditions. The novel feature of the system is the use of an achromatic phase-shifter operating on the principle of the geometric phase, achieved by using a polarising beam splitter, a quarter wave plate and a rotating polariser. Image information is extracted from the visibility of the fringes, the position of the visibility peak along the scanning axis yielding the height of the test surface at the corresponding point.     

Instantaneous phase shifting arrangement for microsurface profiling of flat surfaces

Phase shifting interferometry is a well-established technique for non-contact surface profile measurement. Though phase shifting technique has many advantages, it is marred by a few inaccuracies due to the vibration and mechanical movement of the phase shifter itself. Significant amount of work is reported to theoretically compensate these error sources. But for a few works, prominent achievements have not been reported in eliminating these error sources in phase shifting interferometry. In this paper, a novel optical layout, in combination with instantaneous phase shifting interferometry is described. Experiments were carried out with this setup on a super mirror with a λ/20 surface roughness, to demonstrate the validity of the principle.     

Error evaluation for Zernike polynomials fitting based phase compensation of digital holographic microscopy

Combining the experimental research with the simulation calculation, the error evaluation for Zernike polynomials fitting (ZPF) based phase compensation of digital holographic microscopy (DHM) is performed. The obtained results show that the reconstructed phase with high precision can be obtained by ZPF phase compensation algorithm. Moreover, the phase error for ZPF based phase compensation algorithm increases with both the variation of object height and object transverse area, the larger variation of object height, the larger of phase error, and the larger of object transverse area, the faster increase of RMS phase error. To decrease the error of ZPF phase compensation algorithm, it is required to ensure one of the variations of object height and object transverse area to be a small value. Importantly, the proposed method supplies a useful tool for the error evaluation of phase compensation algorithm.     

A derivative based simplified phase tracker for a single fringe pattern demodulation

In this paper, a novel fringe demodulation method for the estimation of phase and its first-order derivative from a closed-fringe interferogram is proposed. The proposed method determines the phase derivatives in both x&y directions from fringe orientation and density. The phase derivatives are subsequently used to determine phase values using a novel simplified phase tracker. In the phase tracking model, the complexity of the cost function is reduced using predetermined derivatives so computation time required for phase tracking is reduced considerably. The proposed model is more robust while dealing with saddle points in fringes than the conventional phase tracker model. Hence it does not require any specialized scanning strategy. The proposed method is validated with simulated and experimental fringe patterns (obtained using electronic speckle pattern interferometry and optical holographic interferometry) and a comparison study is carried out with conventional regularized phase tracker. The simulation results show that the proposed method has good accuracy and requires less computation time than existing phase-tracking algorithms. The experimental results demonstrate the robustness of the proposed method against speckle noise and its practical applicability for static and dynamic applications.     

Programmable aperture microscopy: A computational method for multi-modal phase contrast and light field imaging

We demonstrate a simple and cost-effective programmable aperture microscope to realize multi-modal computational imaging by integrating a programmable liquid crystal display (LCD) into a conventional wide-field microscope. The LCD selectively modulates the light distribution at the rear aperture of the microscope objective, allowing numerous imaging modalities, such as bright field, dark field, differential phase contrast, quantitative phase imaging, multi-perspective imaging, and full resolution light field imaging to be achieved and switched rapidly in the same setup, without requiring specialized hardwares and any moving parts. We experimentally demonstrate the success of our method by imaging unstained cheek cells, profiling microlens array, and changing perspective views of thick biological specimens. The post-exposure refocusing of a butterfly mouthpart and RFP-labeled dicot stem cross-section is also presented to demonstrate the full resolution light field imaging capability of our system for both translucent and fluorescent specimens.