A method is presented for determining a phase of an input beam (110, E.sub.in) without a reference ray. In the method, an input beam (110, E.sub.in) having a plurality of input rays is split into a main beam (112, E1) and a reference beam (114, E2) in such a way that each input ray is split into a main ray of the main beam (112, E1) and a comparative ray of the reference beam (114, E2). The main beam (112, E1) is propagated along a first interferometer arm, and the reference beam (114, E2) is propagated along the second interferometer arm. The propagated main beam (112, E1) and the propagated reference beam (114, E2) are superposed to form an interference beam having a plurality of interference rays. The propagation along the first and second interferometer arms is carried out such that at least one interference ray of the interference beam is a superposition of a main ray of the propagated main beam (112, E1) assigned to a first input ray of the input beam (110, E.sub.in), and of a comparative ray of the propagated reference beam (114, E2) assigned to a second input ray of the input beam (110, E.sub.in) different from the first input ray.

Various optical systems equipped with diode laser light sources are discussed in the present application. One example system includes a diode laser light source for providing a beam of radiation. The diode laser has a spectral output bandwidth when driven under equilibrium conditions. The system further includes a driver circuit to apply a pulse of drive current to the diode laser. The pulse causes a variation in the output wavelength of the diode laser during the pulse such that the spectral output bandwidth is at least two times larger the spectral output bandwidth under the equilibrium conditions.

A three-dimensional measurement device includes: an optical system that splits incident light into two lights, radiates one of the two lights as measurement light to a measured object and the other of the two lights as reference light to a reference surface, and recombines the two lights into combined light to emit the combined light; a light emitter that emits predetermined light entering the predetermined optical system; an imaging system that takes an image of output light emitted from the optical system; and an image processor that performs three-dimensional measurement of a predetermined measurement area of the measured object based on an interference fringe image obtained by the imaging system. The image processor obtains intensity image data at a predetermined position along an optical axis direction at each coordinate position in the measurement area by reconstruction based on an interference fringe image of the measurement area.

The invention relates to an interferometric method, in which the light scattered by an object is imaged onto an electronic camera, wherein a sample light component is assigned to scattering sites on a sectional face in the interior of the object. This sample light component can be separated from the contributions of the other sample light components by processing of the camera image and leads to a sectional image. A particular advantage of the invention lies in the fact that multiple parallel sectional faces can be exposed sequentially at predetermined intervals from each other in the interior of the object. Such a sequence of sectional images can be used to calculate a solid model of the object.

The present invention relates to a high-speed imaging system for measuring a target object within a sample, comprising: a light source emitting a plane wave; an angle-adjustment mirror adjusting an angle of the plane wave emitted from the light source; an optical interferometer dividing the plane wave whose angle was adjusted by the angle-adjustment mirror into a reference wave and a sample wave and forming an interference wave between the reference wave reflected from a reference mirror and the sample wave reflected from the target object; a camera module obtaining the interference wave, and an imaging controller controlling the angle-adjustment mirror to adjust the angle of the plane wave sequentially, forming a time-gated reflection matrix by using the interference waves obtained by the camera module in accordance with each angle of the plane wave, and imaging the target object based on the time-gated reflection matrix.

Various optical systems equipped with diode laser light sources are discussed in the present application. One example system includes a diode laser light source for providing, a beam of radiation. The diode laser has a spectral output bandwidth when driven under equilibrium conditions. The system further includes a driver circuit to apply a pulse of drive current to the diode laser. The pulse causes a variation in the output wavelength of the diode laser during the pulse such that the spectral output bandwidth is at least two times larger the spectral output bandwidth under the equilibrium conditions.

The present invention relates to an arrangement for the generation of images of optical sections of a three-dimensional (3D) volume in space such as an object, scene, or target, comprising: an illumination unit, an optical arrangement for the imaging of the object onto at least one spatially resolving detector, a scanning mechanism for scanning the entire object and a signal processing unit for the implementation of a method for digital reconstruction of a three-dimensional representation of the object from images of said object as obtained by said detector (which may be in a form of a hologram), wherein the optical arrangement includes a diffractive optical element (herein a phase pinhole), realized using a Spatial Light Modulator (SLM) configured to mimic an actual physical pinhole, while allowing the formation of a three-dimensional representation for a specific point of interest in said object, such that for each scanning position a single hologram or an image is recorded.

Microscope (2) comprising a coherent light source (4) producing a coherent light beam (7), a light beam guide system (6) comprising a beam splitter (14) configured to split the coherent light beam (7) into a reference beam (7a) and a sample illumination beam (7b), a sample holder (18) configured to hold a sample (1) to be observed, a sample illumination device (28) configured to direct the sample illumination beam (7b) through the sample and into a microscope objective (37), a beam reuniter (16) configured to reunite the reference beam and sample illumination beam after passage of the sample illumination beam through the sample to be observed, and a light sensing system (8) configured to capture at least phase and intensity values of the coherent light beam downstream of the beam reuniter.

34 P2418PC00 Abstract Optical diffraction tomography microscope (2) comprising an illumination system (4) configured for transmitting a sample beam through a sample observation zone, a detection 5 system (8) comprising at least one image sensor (54), and a wave collection system (6) comprising a lens (16) downstream of the sample observation zone configured for directing the sample beam towards the at least one image sensor.

Optical diffraction tomography microscope (2) comprising an illumination system (4) configured for transmitting a sample beam through a sample observation zone, a detection system (8) comprising at least one image sensor (54), and a wave collection system (6) comprising a lens (16) downstream of the sample observation zone configured for directing the sample beam towards the at least one image sensor.