title: Single-exposure complementary aperture phase microscopy with polarization encoding.
abstract: We introduce a single-exposure widefield system of producing phase gradient images by dividing the illumination and detection apertures into two oblique complementary components and encoding them using polarization. A Wollaston prism splits the images formed by the two respective aperture halves to allow both components to be simultaneously imaged by a single camera. By producing images characteristically similar to differential interference contrast while using a darkfield illumination scheme, sensitivity to weak phase gradients is improved.
authors.affiliation: Boston University, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, USA. kengyehchu@gmail.com
authors.forename: Kengyeh K
authors.initials: KK
authors.lastname: Chu
authors.forename: Jerome
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Mertz
mesh_terms: D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D007089:Image Enhancement / Q000295:instrumentation*; D007909:Lenses; D008858:Microscopy, Phase-Contrast / Q000295:instrumentation*; D012031:Refractometry / Q000295:instrumentation*