Radial shearing interferometry with in-built polarization phase shifting for three-dimensional imaging and quantitative phase analysis of transparent phase objects in macro and microscopic order

Abstract

Abstract In this exploration, we present a compact and easy-to-set imaging system to analyze the quantitative phase information of macroscopic and microscopic transparent phase samples (TPS) using a Radial shearing interferometric (RSI) design. The proposed setup introduces a wire grid polarizer (WGP) as a beam-splitting optical element in a triangular cyclic configuration to render the two counter-propagating beams linearly polarized in orthogonal directions. These beams are made to pass through the samples in a counter direction. The focusing lens to image the sample is aligned in such a way that either the p-polarized beam illuminates the phase sample in a focused position with respect to the imaging lens position and the remaining s-polarized beam is far apart from its focal length or vice-versa. So polarization phase shifting (PPS) is implemented to generate a three-dimensional (3-D) phase pattern which is digitally captured in a charge-coupled device (CCD) camera to yield the sample phase. The proposed setup is robust, sufficiently tolerant to ambient vibrations, and shows encouraging experimental results using the minimum optics.