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We present a novel single-shot four-wavelength quantitative phase microscopy (FW-QPM). Four lasers operating at different wavelengths are multiplexed with a pair of dichroic mirrors and a polarization beam splitter in a three-mirror quasi-common-path interferometer. After a single-shot interference pattern is obtained with a monochrome camera, four holograms of different wavelengths were demultiplexed from it in the frequency domain with polarization- and frequency-division multiplexing. Polarization-division demultiplexing scheme uses polarization dependent visibility changes in an interference pattern, and it plays a critical role in making only two interference patterns exist within a single quadrant in the frequency domain. We have used a single-mode optical fiber as a phase object sample and demonstrated that a measured single-shot interference pattern can be successfully demultiplexed into four different interferograms of different wavelengths with our proposed scheme.

We present a quasi-common-path interferometer with a double field of view (FOV). The laser beam of an imaging system is separated into three parts using three mirrors; the first and second beams are used to image two different areas of a sample, while the third beam functions as a reference beam. The reference beam is prepared by making clear area in a sample and projecting it on an image sensor. A double FOV is obtained by Fourier domain multiplexing, whereby two interferometric images corresponding to two different areas of a sample are modulated with two different spatial carrier frequencies. The feasibility of this technique is experimentally demonstrated by imaging two different areas of a test target with a single image sensor.

We present a reduced-phase triple-illumination interferometer (RPTII) as a novel single-shot technique to increase the precision of dual-illumination optical phase unwrapping techniques. The technique employs two measurement ranges to record both low-precision unwrapped and high-precision wrapped phases. To unwrap the high-precision phase, a hierarchical optical phase unwrapping algorithm is used with the low-precision unwrapped phase. The feasibility of this technique is demonstrated by measuring a stepped object with a height 2100 times greater than the wavelength of the source. The phase is reconstructed without applying any numerical unwrapping algorithms, and its noise level is decreased by a factor of ten.

Volume measurement of a phase object is one of the most distinctive capabilities of quantitative phase microscopy (QPM). However, the accuracy of a measured volume is limited by the different noises of a measurement system and the finite bandpass filter used in the phase extraction algorithm. In this paper, we analyze the inherent errors in volume measurement with QPM and propose the optimum condition that can minimize these errors. We find that phase information of a sample in the frequency domain nonlinearly oscillates as a function of the phase shift corresponding to the sample and its medium, and that the phase information of a sample inside the bandpass filter can be maximized by a proper phase shift. Through numerical simulations and actual experiments, we demonstrate that the error in phase volume measurement can be effectively reduced by the enhancement of the phase signal inside the bandpass region using an optimum amount of phase, which can be controlled by changing either the medium index or the wavelength of illumination.

We present a reduced-phase dual-illumination interferometer (RPDII) that measures the topography of a sample with large step height variation. We experimentally demonstrate the basic principle and the feasibility of this novel single-shot quantitative phase imaging. Two beams of this interferometer illuminate a sample at different incident angles, and two phases of the different incident angles and their phase difference are simultaneously recorded using three spatial frequencies. The relative phase difference between two beams of an RPDII can be controlled by adjusting the angle such that the maximum phase difference is smaller than 2π, and thus there is no phase wrapping ambiguity in the reconstructed phase. One 4f optical system with a transmission grating is used to illuminate the sample with two collimated beams incident at different angles. The feasibility of this technique is demonstrated by measuring the thicknesses of two stepped metal layers with heights of 150 and 660 μm. Although the change in stepped height is more than 1000 times the wavelength of the laser used in our interferometer, the thicknesses of these two metal layers are successfully obtained without the use of an unwrapping algorithm.

We present a quantitative phase microscopy scheme that simultaneously acquires two phase images at different wavelengths. The simultaneous dual-wavelength measurement was performed with a diffraction phase microscope (DPM) based on a transmission grating and a spatial filter that form a common-path imaging interferometer. With a combined laser source that generates two-color light continuously, a different diffraction order of the grating was utilized for each wavelength component so that the dual-wavelength interference pattern could be distinguished by the distinct fringe frequencies. Our dual-wavelength phase imaging allowed us to extract information on the physical thickness and the refractive index for a specimen immersed in a highly dispersive surrounding medium. We found that our dual-wavelength DPM (DW-DPM) provides an accurate measurement of the volume and the refractive index of a microscopy sample with good measurement stability that results from the common-path geometry.