Quantitative differential phase contrast imaging in an LED array microscope

Illumination-based differential phase contrast (DPC) is a phase imaging method that uses a pair of images with asymmetric illumination patterns. Distinct from coherent techniques, DPC relies on spatially partially coherent light, providing 2x better lateral resolution, better optical sectioning and immunity to speckle noise. In this paper, we derive the 2D weak object transfer function (WOTF) and develop a quantitative phase reconstruction method that is robust to noise. The effect of spatial coherence is studied experimentally, and multiple-angle DPC is shown to provide improved frequency coverage for more stable phase recovery. Our method uses an LED array microscope to achieve real-time (10 Hz) quantitative phase imaging with in vitro live cell samples. (C) 2015 Optical Society of America