Compensation of aberration and speckle noise in quantitative phase imaging using lateral shifting and spiral phase integration

TL;DR

This paper introduces a straightforward method combining lateral shifting and spiral phase integration to effectively eliminate system aberrations and speckle noise in quantitative phase imaging, improving measurement accuracy for complex samples.

Contribution

The proposed technique uniquely calculates system aberration from three shifted images, enhancing quantitative phase imaging especially for confluent samples without background measurements.

Findings

Successfully applied to microspheres, HeLa cells, and mouse brain tissue.

Effectively reduces aberration and speckle noise in various samples.

Analyzed limitations and operational conditions systematically.

Abstract

We present a simple and effective method to eliminate system aberrations and speckle noise in quantitative phase imaging. Using spiral integration, complete information about system aberration is calculated from three laterally shifted phase images. The present method is especially useful when measuring confluent samples in which acquisition of background area is challenging. To demonstrate validity and applicability, we present measurements of various types of samples including microspheres, HeLa cells, and mouse brain tissue. Working conditions and limitations are systematically analyzed and discussed.