Common-path diffraction optical tomography (cDOT) is a non-invasive and label-free optical holographic technique for measuring both the three-dimensional refractive index (RI) tomograms and two-dimensional dynamic phase images of a sample. Due to common-path geometry, cDOT provides quantitative phase imaging with high phase sensitivity. However, the image quality of the cDOT suffers from speckle noise; the use of a monochromatic laser inevitably results in the formation of parasitic fringe patterns in measured quantitative phase images. Here, we present a technique to reduce speckle noise in the cDOT using a low-coherence illumination source. Utilizing a Ti-sapphire pulsed laser in the cDOT, we achieved the reduction of speckle noise in both the three-dimensional RI tomograms and two-dimensional dynamic phase images.

Date Published: 11 March 2015
PDF: 6 pages
Proc. SPIE 9336, Quantitative Phase Imaging, 933629 (11 March 2015); doi: 10.1117/12.2175845

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 9336:
Quantitative Phase Imaging
Gabriel Popescu; YongKeun Park, Editor(s)