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.