A Single-shot Synthetic Aperture Phase Microscope

Quantitative phase microscopy (QPM) has been applied to a wide range of applications, especially in biomedical imaging. The label-free nature of QPM measurement enables sample characterization without complicated and invasive chemical staining procedures on samples. Higher imaging resolution is always preferred for imaging microscopic structures. Synthetic aperture method can be used to enhance the resolution in QPM, namely forming a synthetic aperture phase microscope (SAPM). In SAPM, multiple images, captured under different sample illumination angles, are synthesized to enlarge the object spectrum to reconstruct a high-resolution phase image. However, multiple acquisitions decrease the imaging speed in SAPM. To solve this problem, we propose a single-shot synthetic aperture phase microscope method through reference beam modulation, enabled by digital micro-mirror devices (DMDs). The proposed system provides a resolution enhancement of around 1.4 folds without sacrificing the camera frame rate and field of view.