title: Quantitative reflection phase mesoscopy by remote coherence tuning of phase-shift interference patterns.
abstract: Conventional low-magnification phase-contrast microscopy is an invaluable, yet a qualitative, imaging tool for the interrogation of transparent objects over a mesoscopic millimeter-scale field-of-view in physical and biological settings. Here, we demonstrate that introducing a compact, unbalanced phase-shifting Michelson interferometer into a standard reflected brightfield microscope equipped with low-power infinity-corrected objectives and white light illumination forms a phase mesoscope that retrieves remotely and quantitatively the reflection phase distribution of thin, transparent, and weakly scattering samples with high temporal (1.38 nm) and spatial (0.87 nm) axial-displacement sensitivity and micrometer lateral resolution (2.3 μm) across a mesoscopic field-of-view (2.25 × 1.19 mm(2)). Using the system, we evaluate the etch-depth uniformity of a large-area nanometer-thick glass grating and show quantitative mesoscopic maps of the optical thickness of human cancer cells without any area scanning. Furthermore, we provide proof-of-principle of the utility of the system for the quantitative monitoring of fluid dynamics within a wide region.
authors.affiliation: Biomedical Engineering Department, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, 1 Ben Gurion Blvd, Be'er-Sheva 8410501, Israel.
authors.forename: Elad
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Arbel
authors.affiliation: 1] Biomedical Engineering Department, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, 1 Ben Gurion Blvd, Be'er-Sheva 8410501, Israel [2] Ilse Katz Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, 1 Ben Gurion Blvd, Be'er-Sheva 8410501, Israel.
authors.forename: Alberto
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bilenca