Single-shot wavelength-multiplexed phase microscopy under Gabor regime in a regular microscope embodiment

Phase imaging microscopy under Gabor regime has been recently reported as an extremely simple, low cost and compact way to update a standard bright-field microscope with coherent sensing capabilities. By inserting coherent illumination in the microscope embodiment and producing a small defocus distance of the sample at the input plane, the digital sensor records an in-line Gabor hologram of the target sample, which is then numerically post-processed to finally achieve the sample's quantitative phase information. However, the retrieved phase distribution is affected by the two well-known drawbacks when dealing with Gabor's regime, that is, coherent noise and twin image disturbances. Here, we present a single-shot technique based on wavelength multiplexing for mitigating these two effects. A multi-illumination laser source (including 3 diode lasers) illuminates the sample and a color digital sensor (conventional RGB color camera) is used to record the wavelength-multiplexed Gabor hologram in a single exposure. The technique is completed by presenting a novel algorithm based on a modified Gerchberg-Saxton kernel to finally retrieve an enhanced quantitative phase image of the sample, enhanced in terms of coherent noise removal and twin image minimization. Experimental validations are performed in a regular Olympus BX-60 upright microscope using a 20X 0.46NA objective lens and considering static (resolution test targets) and dynamic (living spermatozoa) phase samples.

Gabor's holography: seven decades influencing optics [Invited]

Dennis Gabor's seminal idea of a simple all-optical setup aimed at reconstructing the object wavefront stored on a photographic plate gave birth a little over seven decades ago to the field of holography. In 1971 Gabor obtained the Nobel Prize in Physics for this invention. Still, the road in the early days after his two first papers on the subject was one full of obstacles, so his scientific and engineering contemporaries put his idea to rest for more than 10 years, until the invention of the laser. This fact made his holographic concept take off to new and unsuspected applications. This invited review paper is a homage to Dennis Gabor's 50th anniversary of his Nobel Prize accolade. For this purpose, the review departs from the typical common route, i.e., those written following a timeline fashion, and instead is written with the intent to cover only a few of the holography applications in optics while scanning the electromagnetic spectrum. In doing this, the authors are aware that other invited papers for this special issue will tackle other subjects not dealt with in this review non-timeline paper.

Single-shot in-line Fresnel incoherent holography using a dual-focus checkerboard lens

Fresnel incoherent correlation holography (FINCH) is a technology that can acquire three-dimensional information of incoherent objects such as fluorescence with an in-line optical system. However, it is difficult to apply FINCH to dynamic phenomena, since FINCH has to detect phase-shifted holograms sequentially to eliminate twin and zero-order images. In this paper, a method in which the phase-shifted holograms can be obtained simultaneously with an in-line setup by using an optimized simulated diffraction optical element (sDOE), realized by a phase-only spatial light modulator, is proposed. The optimized sDOE is an optical device with a dual-focus lens, 2D grating, and spatial phase shifter. Therefore, the sDOE is called a dual-focus checkerboard lens. The optical experiment confirms the feasibility of the proposed method.

Chip-scale microscopy imaging

Chip-scale microscopy imaging platforms are pivotal for improving the efficiency of modern biomedical and bioscience experiments. Their integration with other lab-on-a-chip techniques would allow rapid, reliable and high-throughput sample analysis for applications in diverse disciplines. In typical chip-scale microscopy imaging platforms, the light path can be generalized to the following steps: photons leave the light source, interact with the sample and finally are detected by the sensor. Based on the light path of these platforms, the current review aims to provide some insights on design strategies for chip-scale microscopy. Specifically, we analyze current chip-scale microscopy approaches from three aspects: illumination design, sample manipulation and substrate/imager modification. We also discuss some opportunities for future developments of chip-scale microscopy, such as time multiplexed structured illumination and hydrodynamic focusing for high throughput sample manipulation.

The ePetri dish, an on-chip cell imaging platform based on subpixel perspective sweeping microscopy (SPSM)

We report a chip-scale lensless wide-field-of-view microscopy imaging technique, subpixel perspective sweeping microscopy, which can render microscopy images of growing or confluent cell cultures autonomously. We demonstrate that this technology can be used to build smart Petri dish platforms, termed ePetri, for cell culture experiments. This technique leverages the recent broad and cheap availability of high performance image sensor chips to provide a low-cost and automated microscopy solution. Unlike the two major classes of lensless microscopy methods, optofluidic microscopy and digital in-line holography microscopy, this new approach is fully capable of working with cell cultures or any samples in which cells may be contiguously connected. With our prototype, we demonstrate the ability to image samples of area 6 mm × 4 mm at 660-nm resolution. As a further demonstration, we showed that the method can be applied to image color stained cell culture sample and to image and track cell culture growth directly within an incubator. Finally, we showed that this method can track embryonic stem cell differentiations over the entire sensor surface. Smart Petri dish based on this technology can significantly streamline and improve cell culture experiments by cutting down on human labor and contamination risks.