Off-axis Interferometry Research Articles

3-D temperature measurement of transient plasma during semiconductor bridge electroburst with high-speed interferometry

A high-speed technique for three-dimensional (3-D) imaging of dynamic transient temperature field using single-shot off-axis interferometry is proposed. The sequence of interferograms, which contain temperature parameters of plasma, is obtained with using a Mach-Zender interferometer system and high-speed photography. The interferograms were processed using the Fourier transform and the Abel algorithm, to extract the refractive index distribution. Subsequently, the radial and 3-D distribution of temperature were derived with G-D equation. In experiments, transient process less than 100μs during plasma electroburst was successful captured at a frame rate of 3 × 106 fps. The 3-D temperature and its variations during the whole process in a SCB ignition was clearly revealed for the first time.

Slightly off-axis interferometry based on spatial-carrier phase-shifting differential method

Slightly off-axis interferometry based on spatial-carrier phase-shifting differential method

DMD-based single-pixel off-axis interferometry for wavefront reconstruction of a biological sample

Single-pixel detecting is suitable for wavefront reconstruction in some special wavelengths where array detectors are immature or even unavailable and/or under low light conditions. However, most of the demonstrations are generally realized by multi-step phase-shifting interferometry with a liquid crystal spatial light modulator (LC-SLM) that has a slow modulation speed, which limits the reconstruction speed, thus restricting practical applications of the technique. Here, we propose to use a digital-micromirror-device-(DMD)-based single-pixel off-axis common-path interferometry (SOCI) for faster wavefront reconstruction. The method utilizes passive detection based on the DMD to realize SOCI for accelerating wavefront reconstruction. As compared to the LC-SLM-based phase-shifting techniques, since the modulation speed of the DMD is hundreds of times faster than that of the LC-SLM, the DMD-based SOCI accelerates several folds of reconstruction speed further, which, thus, makes the final wavefront reconstruction three orders of magnitude faster. The effectiveness and advantages of our method are experimentally demonstrated by quantitatively reconstructing the amplitude and phase images of a biological sample.

Dual-wavelength real-time simultaneous phase imaging based on off-axis interferometry

Dual-wavelength interferometry is widely used in optical measurement, including the of great significance phase imaging of transparent samples. Here, we present a dual wavelength real-time phase imaging system based on off-axis interferometry with two cameras for recording complex fields transmitted through transparent samples in a wide-field and non-intrusive manner. The method of phase unwrapping based on combing dual wavelength with Fourier transform was derived in detail. The advantage of the proposed system is, compared with single-shot dual wavelength holograms methods, that it can easily extract the complex fields at both wavelengths without consideration of spectrum overlap or needing extra optic device to create lateral shearing. For phase noise, we calculated and removed the phase signal without sample in Fourier domain, which can also ensure the measured phase accurately. Experimental results on standard sample (polystyrene microspheres) demonstrated the efficiency of this imaging system. Implementation in quantitative imaging of living cells showed the time of single-shot acquisition of samples was only 0.025s, which indicated that the system can be applied to real-time and label-free identification of phase objects.

Fast polarization-sensitive second-harmonic generation microscopy based on off-axis interferometry.

We propose polarization-sensitive second-harmonic generation microscopy based on off-axis interferometry (OI-PSHG) by recording the complex field of a wide-field second-harmonic generation (SHG) image and performing polarization measurements. With the ability to record the SHG signals associated with different positions simultaneously, the proposed method exhibits a higher imaging frame rate than raster scanning-based SHG microscopy. The molecular orientation (in terms of their symmetric axis) of tendon collagen fibrils and myosin in muscle is resolved in three dimensions from a subset of polarization-resolved SHG holograms. With the present configuration, it takes approximately 0.01 s to acquire an image with 128 × 128 pixels, which is mainly limited by the excitation power density for wide-field illumination. For the same data throughput using pixel-by-pixel scanning, 0.16-s-long acquisition is required, with the pixel dwell time of 10 µs. Offering the ability to perform wide-field imaging and polarization measurements, the present work lays the foundation for fast SHG microscopy using complex deconvolution and harmonic tomography.

Single-shot off-axis full-field optical coherence tomography

Full field optical coherence tomography (FF-OCT) enables high-resolution in-depth imaging within turbid media. In this work, we present a simple approach which combines FF-OCT with off-axis interferometry for reconstruction of en-face images. With low spatial and temporal coherence illumination, this method is able to extract an FF-OCT image from only one interference acquisition. This method is described, and the proof-of-concept is demonstrated through the observation of scattering samples such as organic and ex vivo biomedical samples.

Real-Time Reconstruction of the Complex Field of Phase Objects Based on Off-Axis Interferometry

Quantitative phase imaging (QPI) can acquire dynamic data from living cells without the need for physical contact. We presented a real-time and stable dynamic imaging system for recording complex fields of transparent samples by using Fourier transform based on off-axis interferometry. We calculated and removed the system phase without sample to obtain the real phase of the sample, so as to ensure that the system has the ability to accurately measure the phase. The temporal and spatial phase sensitivity of the system was evaluated. Benefit from the ability to record the dynamic phase and phase profile of a specimen, a standard sample (polystyrene microspheres) is investigated to demonstrate the efficiency of this imaging system and we have observed the variation of erythrocyte membrane during Red Blood Cells (RBCs) spontaneous hemolysis with different mediums. Experimental results indicate that the phase of non-anticoagulant RBC changed apparently than anticoagulant RBC and the system could be applied to real-time noninvasive and label-free identification of living cells.

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

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.

Full-field measurement of complex objects illuminated by an ultrashort pulse laser using delay-line sweeping off-axis interferometry.

Measuring the complex field of ultrashort pulse lasers plays a fundamental role in light wavefront manipulation and nonlinear phenomena investigation; yet, it still constitutes a challenge for both full-field and high-resolution characterization due to the short coherent length. We proposed and implemented an off-axis interference system with a delay-line sweeping technique to overcome the fringe contrast degradation caused by the envelope mismatch between interfering pulses, resulting in an increased effective analysis area. The effectiveness of the proposed method was first demonstrated by measuring a complex field generated by a phase-only spatial light modulator, where a four-pixel binning technique was adopted for both amplitude and phase modulation; then it was used for the measurement of the second harmonic generation signal of a urea crystal sample. The experimental results show that the proposed method is capable of measuring complex fields having fine features within the full field. The proposed technique can be applied for strongly scattering medium refocusing and adaptive optics, where measuring the complex field of ultrashort pulse lasers is essential.

Beating temporal phase sensitivity limit in off-axis interferometry based quantitative phase microscopy

Phase sensitivity determines the lowest optical path length (OPL) value that can be detected from the noise floor in a quantitative phase microscopy (QPM) system. The temporal phase sensitivity is known to be limited by both photon shot-noise and a variety of noise sources from electronic devices and environment. To beat temporal phase sensitivity limit, we explore different ways to reduce different noise factors in off-axis interferometry-based QPM using laser-illumination. Using a high electron-well-capacity camera, we measured the temporal phase sensitivity values using non-common-path and common-path interferometry based QPM systems under different environmental conditions. A frame summing method and a spatiotemporal filtering method are further used to reduce the noise contributions, thus enabling us to push the overall temporal phase sensitivity to less than 2 picometers.

Dual-Wavelength Diffraction Phase Microscopy With 170 Times Larger Image Area

Image area for multiple-color three-dimensional (3-D) off-axis interferometry is extremely restricted because of the Nyquist sampling rate, autocorrelation term, and twin cross-correlation term in the frequency domain for each wavelength. Furthermore, the image area is more restricted in dual-wavelength diffraction phase microscopy, which is an important tool for 3-D biological imaging with subnanometer sensitivity. The reason for this extra restriction is the use of only one pinhole for generating two uniform reference beams, which is not sufficient for imaging large areas. Here, we developed large field-of-view double-pinhole dual-wavelength diffraction phase microscopy as a novel approach to capture maximum possible information using two arbitrary wavelengths in the off-axis arrangement. The rules to optimize the two-dimensional sampling scheme without any crosstalk for two arbitrary wavelengths are theoretically presented. We demonstrate that the loss in the image area of the dual-wavelength holographic system designed with this approach is limited to 0–11% of the maximum possible image area using single-wavelength off-axis interferometry. Total amount of information is more than 170 times that of previously reported dual-wavelength diffraction phase microscopy employing single grating, single pinhole, and no sampling scheme optimization. Feasibility of the technique with sub-nanometer sensitivity is demonstrated by measuring optical thickness of polystyrene microspheres.

Super-Bandwidth Two-Step Phase-Shifting Off-Axis Digital Holography by Optimizing Two-Dimensional Spatial Frequency Sampling Scheme

The presence of the auto correlation and twin cross correlation noises restrict the available spatial bandwidth of the holographic microscopy to much less than the available bandwidth of the digital sensor. Therefore, in order to record the same image area as conventional 2D intensity imaging techniques, several images should be taken. We present two-step phase-shifting off-axis digital holography with maximum space-bandwidth product for three-dimensional (3D) digital holography. Removing the autocorrelation term using a two-step phase-shifting technique significantly increases the available bandwidth for off-axis interferometry. An optimizing super-diagonal two-dimensional (2D) spatial frequency sampling scheme at the sub-Nyquist frequency is employed for performing off-axis interferometry in the absence of the autocorrelation term. The spatial bandwidth of the proposed two-step phase-shifting technique is 400% of that in square scheme off-axis digital holography. Experimental results demonstrate the feasibility of this technique in extracting the 3D morphology of transparent microscopic objects with a larger bandwidth.

利用图像翻转和复域编码的离轴干涉载频消除

利用图像翻转和复域编码的离轴干涉载频消除

Off-axis low coherence digital holographic interferometry for quantitative phase imaging with an LED

Off-axis digital holographic interferometry with the light source of a light emitting diode (LED) is presented and its application for quantitative phase imaging in a large range with low noise is demonstrated. The scheme is implemented in a grating based Mach–Zehnder interferometer. To achieve off-axis interferometry, firstly, the collimated beam emitted from an LED is diffracted into multiple orders by a grating and they are split into two copies by a beam splitter; secondly, in the object arm the zero order of one copy is filtered in the Fourier plane and is reshaped to illuminate the sample, while in the reference arm one of its first order of another copy is selected to serve as the reference beam, and then an off-axis hologram can be obtained at the image plane. The main advantage stemming from an LED illumination is its high spatial phase resolution, due to the subdued speckle effect. The off-axis geometry enables one-shot recording of the hologram in the millisecond scale. The utility of the proposed setup is illustrated with measurements of a resolution target and part of a wing of green-lacewing, and dynamic evaporation process of an ethanol film.

Ultrahigh-speed, phase-sensitive full-field interferometric confocal microscopy for quantitative microscale physiology.

We developed ultra-high-speed, phase-sensitive, full-field reflection interferometric confocal microscopy (FFICM) for the quantitative characterization of in vivo microscale biological motions and flows. We demonstrated 2D frame rates in excess of 1 kHz and pixel throughput rates up to 125 MHz. These fast FFICM frame rates were enabled by the use of a low spatial coherence, high-power laser source. Specifically, we used a dense vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL) array that synthesized low spatial coherence light through a large number of narrowband, mutually-incoherent emitters. Off-axis interferometry enabled single-shot acquisition of the complex-valued interferometric signal. We characterized the system performance (~2 μm lateral resolution, ~8 μm axial gating depth) with a well-known target. We also demonstrated the use of this highly parallelized confocal microscopy platform for visualization and quantification of cilia-driven surface flows and cilia beat frequency in an important animal model (Xenopus embryos) with >1 kHz frame rate. Such frame rates are needed to see large changes in local flow velocity over small distance (high shear flow), in this case, local flow around a single ciliated cell. More generally, our results are an important demonstration of low-spatial coherence, high-power lasers in high-performance, quantitative biomedical imaging.

A novel method for identifying the order of interference using phase-shifting digital holography.

In this paper, we introduced a mathematical method for measuring the optical path length differences (OPDs), which is suitable for large OPD values where the fringes connections are difficult to detect. The proposed method is based on varying the width of the fringes, without changing the wavelength of the used coherent source. Also, in this work, we discussed the need for such method in off-axis phase-shifting digital holography. Low-resolution off-axis holograms failed to detect the correct interference order. In general, off-axis phase-shifting digital holography is limited by the resolution of the captured holograms. The results obtained using our proposed technique were compared to the results obtained using off-axis phase-shifting digital holograms and conventional two-beam interferometry. Holograms were given for illustration.

基于离轴显微干涉术的单幅干涉图相位求解

基于离轴显微干涉术的单幅干涉图相位求解

Fast phase retrieval method based on twice derivatives in phase-shifting interferometry with a blind phase shift

A derivative method for phase retrieval in two-step phase-shifting interferometry (PSI) with a blind phase shift is proposed in this Letter. By numerically calculating the first-order and second-order derivatives of two PSI images, one can directly determine the phase shift and then obtain the quantitative phase image. We illustrate the method with both a theoretical analysis and some simulations of an average-sized red blood cell in different interferometry recording modes. From the results, the validity, accuracy, as well as efficiency of this method are verified. Moreover, this method can be applied to any quantitative phase imaging, including on-axis, off-axis, and slight off-axis interferometry.

LED-based digital holographic microscopy with slightly off-axis interferometry

An LED illuminated Linnik-type digital holographic microscope (DHM) for high-quality phase imaging is presented by the adoption of slightly off-axis two-step blind-phase-shifting interferometry (TB-PSI). Slightly off-axis interferometry lowers the requirement on the angle between the object and the reference waves as well as the requirement on the resolving power of the charge-coupled device (CCD) camera. In addition, the apparatus is cost-effective and offers ease of alignment. The phase-shifting DHM is simply implemented by mechanically moving the reference mirror while disposing of a precise phase modulator such as a piezoelectric transducer (PZT). The phase shift between the two interferograms is extracted by Fourier transformation analysis, and then the phase image is reconstructed. The performance of the TB-PSI used in the scheme is analyzed. The phase imaging for nanostructured specimens is conducted, and the results demonstrate the feasibility of the scheme. The phase noise is reduced by 73% when compared to the result obtained with coherent illumination.

Simulation study on the quantitative phase retrieval method under two-step phase-shifting technique

Based on two-step phase-shifting technique, we present a new derivative method for phase information extraction in quantitative phase imaging (QPI). By acquiring two phase-shifted interferograms and numerically calculating their 1st order derivatives, one can directly obtain the quantitative phase information. We demonstrate the proposed method by comparing our simulated results with the experimental results of the red blood cell and the HeLa cell, respectively. It shows that our method can be generally applied to any QPI, such as on-axis and off-axis interferometry, especially for slightly off-axis interferometry, and it has the feature of efficient utility of camera spatial bandwidth and the ability of fast data processing.