Quantitative phase imaging using a partitioned detection aperture

Abstract

We present a technique to quantitatively image the phase of thin quasi-transparent samples using extended source incoherent illumination and off-axis detection apertures. Our technique is achromatic and polarization independent, requires no active elements, and can be readily adapted to standard bright-field microscopes. We demonstrate our technique by quantitatively reconstructing the phase of cheek cells and a microlens. The light efficient, single-shot nature of our technique enables phase imaging at frame rates that are camera limited.

Imaging translucent cell bodies in the living mouse retina without contrast agents

“…This allows the collection of rays that would otherwise be discarded. A variant of oblique illumination is oblique detection, which by using a partitioned detector in the pupil plane allows the detection of phase gradients [55,56]. These techniques are usually implemented in transmission mode, an approach that is prohibitive when studying the retina in the living eye.…”

Quantitative phase microscopy of transparent samples using a liquid crystal display

“…Another potential difficulty for its general use might be the availability of a nonstandard optical element (e.g., the glass pyramid) of sufficient quality in terms of planarity, equality of the angles between the faces, and sharpness of the edges. We should mention that a recent proposal involves implementation of the PPM using a squared array of four lenslets 16 integrating the splitting with the reimaging optics in a single refractive component, which translates the requirements for the optical quality of the pyramid to the optical quality of a nonstandard component with the same limitations in terms of lateral resolution.…”

Widefield fluorescence microscopy with sensor-based conjugate adaptive optics using oblique back illumination

“…This was originally developed to perform quantitative phase imaging either in a transmission 14 or reflection 15 geometry, and shares the same property of a Shack-Hartmann (SH) wavefront sensor that it provides a measure of local flux-density tilts in a light beam that is partially coherent. Some advantages of PAW sensing are that it can tolerate a higher degree of spatial incoherence (or flux-density tilt diversity) than SH sensing and it offers higher spatial resolution.…”