Fast method of speckle suppression for reflection phase microscopy

Abstract

Light propagating in a turbid medium is randomly altered by optical inhomogeneities, which not only change the momentum and polarization of light but also generate a speckle pattern. All these effects strongly limit the capabilities of laser based, quantitative phase– sensitive optical biomedical imaging modalities by hindering the reconstruction of phase distribution. Here we introduce the method of rapid incident light modulation, which allows to suppress speckle noise and preserve spatial phase distribution. We implement this approach in the full-field Michelson interferometer, where incident light is modulated using a digital micromirror device (DMD).