Synthetic holography based on scanning microcavity

Abstract

Synthetic optical holography (SOH) is an imaging technique, introduced in scanning microscopy to record amplitude and phase of a scattered field from a sample. In this paper, it is described a novel implementation of SOH through a lens-free low-coherence system, based on a scanning optical microcavity. This technique combines the low-coherence properties of the source with the mutual interference of scattered waves and the resonant behavior of a micro-cavity, in order to realize a high sensitive imaging system. Micro-cavity is compact and realized by approaching a cleaved optical fiber to the sample. The scanning system works in an open-loop configuration without the need for a reference wave, usually required in interferometric systems. Measurements were performed over calibration samples and a lateral resolution of about 1 μm is achieved by means of an optical fiber with a Numerical Aperture (NA) equal to 0.1 and a Mode Field Diameter (MDF) of 5.6 μm.