Increasing field of view and signal to noise ratio in the quantitative phase imaging with phase shifting holography based on the Hanbury Brown-Twiss approach

Abstract Quantitative phase imaging (QPI) plays an essential role in exploring properties of objects exemplified by transparent and absorption-free samples. Within the realm of QPI, the holography that records both the amplitude and the phase of optical fields is widely used. However, when the object is obscured by a scattering medium, conventional holographic methods can no longer be used to extract complex-value field information of the object from the directly recorded intensity pattern. To address this challenge, we demonstrate a lensless QPI using holographic methods derived from the coherence theory. Based on the Hanbury Brown-Twiss (HBT) approach, these methods include off-axis holography, phase-shifting holography, and polarization-based phase-shifting holography. We make quantitative comparisons among these three HBT-based holography techniques for the phase imaging through a diffuser in a common experimental setup. In comparison with first two, the third one, which utilizes an orthogonally-polarized light that transmits coaxially with object light as the reference light, upgrades the imaging capability by suppressing noises and augmenting the field of view (FOV). Finally, its outperformance over other two methods is illustrated by imaging a complicated phase sample.