Single-plane and multiplane quantitative phase imaging by self-reference on-axis holography with a phase-shifting method.

Abstract

A new quantitative phase imaging approach is proposed based on self-reference holography. Three on-axis interferograms with different values of the phase filter are superposed. The superposition yields a more accurate phase map of the wavefront emerging from the object, compared with standard off-axis interferometry. Reduced temporal noise levels in the measured phase map and efficient phase recovery process for optically thin and thick transmissive phase objects highlight the applicability of the suggested framework for various fields ranging from metrology to bio-imaging. Qualitative phase imaging is also done online without altering the optical configuration. Qualitative phase detections of multiple planes of interest are converted to quantitative phase maps of the multiplane scene by a rapid phase contrast-based phase retrieval algorithm, from a single camera exposure and with no moving parts in the system.