Phase aberration compensation for digital holographic microscopy based on double fitting and background segmentation

Abstract We propose a purely automatic and accurate phase aberration compensation method in digital holographic microscopy for phase-contrast imaging of living cells. At first, a least-squares fitting procedure is implemented to correct a large proportion of the phase aberrations. Subsequently, the flat phase background is retrieved based on phase gradient and image segmentation. Finally, the residual phase aberrations are eliminated in another least-squares fitting procedure performed within the background region. This method needs no manual intervention or prior knowledge of optical setup. Not only phase curvature but also high order aberrations could be corrected without extra components. It outperforms the phase-variation-minimization method in terms of noise robustness and calculation speed. The performance of the proposed method is demonstrated with simulated and experimental results.