Parallel two-step phase-shifting microscopic interferometry based on a cube beamsplitter

Parallel two-step phase-shifting interferometry for microscopy is presented, and the recording condition for generalized two-step phase-shifting interferometry is discussed. A 45° tilted cube beamsplitter enables to replicate the orthogonally linear polarized object and reference waves into two parallel beams, respectively. As a consequence, two interferograms with quadrature phase shift are obtained along the two beams, and phase reconstructed with an improved algorithm. To reconstruct the phase distribution from the two-step phase-shifting interferograms, a certain recording condition should be satisfied. However, the recording condition has not ever been discussed before. In this paper, the recording condition for the two-step phase-shifting interferometry is derived and that is: the intensity of reference wave should be no less than two times object wave intensity.