Virtual optics and sensing of the retrieved complex field in the back focal plane using a constrained defocus algorithm

Somekh, Michael G.; Shen, Hong; Chow, Terry W. K.; Shen, Mengqi

Abstract

The reflected back focal plane from a microscope objective is known to provide excellent information of material properties and can be used to analyze the generation of surface plasmons and surface waves in a localized region. Most analysis has concentrated on direct measurement of the reflected intensity in the back focal plane. By accessing the phase information, we show that examination in the back focal plane becomes considerably more powerful allowing the reconstructed field to be filtered, propagated and analyzed in different domains. Moreover, the phase often gives a superior measurement that is far easier to use in the assessment of the sample, an example of such cases is examined in the present paper. We discuss how the modified defocus phase retrieval algorithm has the potential for real time measurements with parallel image acquisition since only three images are needed for reliable retrieval of arbitrary distributions.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Oct 4, 2020
• Online Publication Date: Oct 15, 2020
• Publication Date: Oct 26, 2020
• Deposit Date: Apr 11, 2021
• Publicly Available Date: Apr 21, 2021
• Journal: Optics Express
• Electronic ISSN: 1094-4087
• Publisher: Optical Society of America
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 28
• Issue: 22
• Pages: 32777-32792
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1364/oe.404573
• Keywords: Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/4984250
• Publisher URL: https://www.osapublishing.org/oe/fulltext.cfm?uri=oe-28-22-32777&id=441682
• Additional Information: Copyright: © 2020 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreement