Improving the quality of filament-impaired images in Kerr media by statistical averaging

In focusing Kerr media, small- scale filamentation is the major obstacle to imaging at high light intensities. In this article, we experimentally and numerically demonstrate a method based on statistical averaging to reduce the detrimental effects of filamentation on the reconstructed images. The experiments are performed with femtosecond optical pulses propagating through a nonlinear liquid (toluene). We use digital holography to capture the transmitted optical image. The reverse propagation of the captured field is numerically performed using a numerical solution of the nonlinear Schrodinger equation. Because of their intrinsic sensitivity to measurement noise, filaments fail to propagate back on their initial trajectories and parasitic filaments form. The principle of the method is the introduction of artificial perturbations on the measurement, which spatially displace the parasitic filaments. By averaging the reconstruction over many realizations of the artificial perturbation, we show that the reconstruction improves the quality of the images. Finally, in order to identify the different regimes of optical power for which the filaments are time reversible, we also derive an analytical estimate for the condition number of the nonlinear propagator. (C) 2015 Optical Society of America

On the complex three-dimensional amplitude point spread function of lenses and microscope objectives: theoretical aspects, simulations and measurements by digital holography

Florian Charrière, Tristan Colomb, Christian Depeursinge, Jonas Kühn, Mihaela Marian, Pierre Marquet, Frédéric Montfort

The point spread function is widely used to characterize the three-dimensional imaging capabilities of an optical system. Usually, attention is paid only to the intensity point spread function, whereas the phase point spread function is most often neglected because the phase information is not retrieved in noninterferometric imaging systems. However, phase point spread functions are needed to evaluate phase-sensitive imaging systems and we believe that phase data can play an essential role in the full aberrations' characterization. In this paper, standard diffraction models have been used for the computation of the complex amplitude point spread function. In particular, the Debye vectorial model has been used to compute the amplitude point spread function of ×63/0.85 and ×100/1.3 microscope objectives, exemplifying the phase point spread function specific for each polarization component of the electromagnetic field. The effect of aberrations on the phase point spread function is then analyzed for a microscope objective used under nondesigned conditions, by developing the Gibson model (Gibson & Lanni, 1991), modified to compute the three-dimensional amplitude point spread function in amplitude and phase. The results have revealed a novel anomalous phase behaviour in the presence of spherical aberration, providing access to the quantification of the aberrations. This work mainly proposes a method to measure the complex three-dimensional amplitude point spread function of an optical imaging system. The approach consists in measuring and interpreting the amplitude point spread function by evaluating in amplitude and phase the image of a single emitting point, a 60-nm-diameter tip of a Near Field Scanning Optical Microscopy fibre, with an original digital holographic experimental setup. A single hologram gives access to the transverse amplitude point spread function. The three-dimensional amplitude point spread function is obtained by performing an axial scan of the Near Field Scanning Optical Microscopy fibre. The phase measurements accuracy is equivalent to λ/60 when the measurement is performed in air. The method capability is demonstrated on an Achroplan ×20 microscope objective with 0.4 numerical aperture. A more complete study on a ×100 microscope objective with 1.3 numerical aperture is also presented, in which measurements performed with our setup are compared with the prediction of an analytical aberrations model.

2007

Digital reverse propagation in focusing Kerr media

Alexandre Goy, Demetri Psaltis

Lenses allow the formation of clear images in homogeneous linear media. Holography is an alternative imaging method, but its use is limited to cases in which it provides an advantage, such as three-dimensional imaging. In nonlinear media, lenses no longer work. The light produces intensity-dependent aberrations. The reverse propagation method used in digital holography to form images from recorded holograms works even in Kerr media [M. Tsang, D. Psaltis, and F. G. Omenetto, Opt. Lett. 28, 1873 (2003).]. The principle has been experimentally demonstrated recently in defocusing media [C. Barsi, W. Wan, and J.W. Fleischer, Nat. Photonics 3, 211 (2009).]. Here, we report experimental results in focusing media.

2011

Broadband Digital Holographic Camera for Microscopy

Zahra Monemhaghdoust

In this thesis, we explore a combination of analog and digital holographic techniques to demonstrate high speed quantitative phase imaging (QPI) using low coherence (broad bandwidth) light sources. Off-axis digital holographic microscopy is inherently a coherent method of phase quantification and thus suffers from coherent noise. However, only one measurement is required to retrieve field information which gives an advantage in term of image acquisition speed. While incoherent methods of phase quantification remove the problem of coherent noise, they require acquiring several measurements which is sometimes not acceptable in the study of dynamical systems. Therefore, this thesis is an attempt to extend off-axis digital holographic microscopy from the coherent to the incoherent regime to maintain the benefit of high speed measurement capability of off-axis holography while reducing the coherent noise. First, we demonstrate that by using a suitable combination of holographic gratings, off-axis digital holographic microscopy can work with spectrally broadband illumination sources. Holographic gratings introduce a tilt in the coherence plane of one of the reference or object arms of an off-axis digital holographic microscope to expand the interference area to the whole field of view of the camera. Although QPI provides useful information in addition to state-of-the-art intensity-based microscopic imaging, its use has not permeated yet far beyond research laboratories. One potential reason is the need for a stand-alone dedicated microscope system, which is expensive and not back-compatible to the existing wide-field microscopes. In this Regard, the second part of this thesis explores an add-on camera module which can be attached to the camera port of any standard intensity microscope. The techniques developed to extend the off-axis DHM in the first part of the thesis will be used to demonstrate a proof-of-concept camera module which operates with broadband light sources. Overall, through the combination of analog and digital holography, the goal of this work is to extend full-field off-axis holography to incoherent regime to benefit from real-time speckle-free measurements, optical sectioning and realization of a digital holographic camera which can be placed in the image plane of a standard optical microscope.