Orientation independent retardation imaging using quantitative polarized phase microscopy

Abstract

Simultaneous optical phase and retardation measurement of a birefringent specimen is demonstrated independently of a priori knowledge of the optic axis orientation. The two-dimensional retardation distribution in both magnitude and angle of the fast axis orientation is uniquely determined from transverse phase images recorded with a bright field transmission microscope using light polarized at a minimum of three different polarization orientations. This approach opens a new possibility for stain-free phase and orientation-independent retardation characterization of samples using only one polarizer without needing other additional optical elements traditionally used in polarimetric measurements.

Quantitative retardance imaging of biological samples using quadriwave lateral shearing interferometry

“…Some faster methods, which allow fast linear birefringence extraction, have been proposed recently [27,28]. However, they require a priori knowledge about the sample and few are fast enough to deal with living biological samples [29].…”