Observing dynamics of transparent samples by harmonically matched grating-based full-field quadrature phase interferometer

Our group has reported the use of harmonically matched diffraction grating for full-field quantitative phase imaging. In this paper, we show the improvement of this technique and the application in observing dynamics of transparent samples. By using the grating as a beam splitter/combiner in an interferometer, we are able to obtain non-trivial phase difference between the output ports of the grating. We have built a Mach-Zehnder interferometer using the holographic grating with 600 and 1200 lines/mm spacing. Two CCD cameras at the output ports of the grating-based Mach-Zehnder interferometer are used to record the full-field quadrature interferograms, which are subsequently processed to reconstruct the phase image. Since the two quadrature interferograms are acquired at the same time, the imaging speed of the system is limited only by the frame rate of the CCD cameras. We have demonstrated the capability of our system by observing dynamics of transparent samples.

[1]  C. Fang-Yen,et al.  Tomographic phase microscopy , 2008, Nature Methods.

[2]  G. B. David,et al.  The zeiss-Nomarski differential interference equipment for transmitted-light microscopy. , 1969, Zeitschrift fur wissenschaftliche Mikroskopie und mikroskopische Technik.

[3]  Zahid Yaqoob,et al.  Full field phase imaging using a harmonically matched diffraction grating pair based homodyne quadrature interferometer , 2007 .

[4]  E. Cuche,et al.  Digital holographic microscopy: a noninvasive contrast imaging technique allowing quantitative visualization of living cells with subwavelength axial accuracy. , 2005, Optics letters.

[5]  Jeff Fingler,et al.  Homodyne en face optical coherence tomography. , 2006, Optics letters.

[6]  Suliana Manley,et al.  Optical measurement of cell membrane tension. , 2006, Physical review letters.

[7]  F. Zernike.  Phase contrast, a new method for the microscopic observation of transparent objects , 1942 .

[8]  Gabriel Popescu,et al.  Hilbert phase microscopy for investigating fast dynamics in transparent systems. , 2005, Optics letters.

[9]  E. Cuche,et al.  Measurement of the integral refractive index and dynamic cell morphometry of living cells with digital holographic microscopy. , 2005, Optics express.

[10]  Lifeng Li,et al.  Measurement of phase differences between the diffracted orders of deep relief gratings. , 2003, Optics letters.

[11]  Andrew W. Fitzgibbon,et al.  Ellipse-specific direct least-square fitting , 1996, Proceedings of 3rd IEEE International Conference on Image Processing.

[12]  Changhuei Yang,et al.  Instantaneous quadrature low coherence interferometry with 3 x 3 fiber optic couplers , 2003, Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics, 2003. CLEO '03..

[13]  Etienne Cuche,et al.  Real-time dual-wavelength digital holographic microscopy with a single hologram acquisition , 2007 .

[14]  K. Nugent,et al.  Noninterferometric phase imaging with partially coherent light , 1998 .

[15]  Zahid Yaqoob,et al.  Harmonically-related diffraction gratings-based interferometer for quadrature phase measurements. , 2006, Optics express.

[16]  Marinko Sarunic,et al.  Full-field swept-source phase microscopy , 2006, SPIE BiOS.

[17]  Adam Wax,et al.  Quantitative phase microscopy with asynchronous digital holography. , 2007, Optics express.