When the optical system is illuminated with an illumination light flux emitted from one extant input image point, an interference image generated by superimposing an extant output light flux output from the optical system and a reference light flux coherent with the extant output light flux is imaged to acquire interference image data, and thus to acquire measured phase distribution, and this acquisition operation is applied to each extant input image point. Thus, each measured phase distribution is expanded by expanding functions n(u, v) having coordinates (u, v) on a phase defining plane as a variable to be represented as a sum with coefficients n{Ajn.Math.n(u, v)}. When the optical system is illuminated with a virtual illumination light flux, a phase (u, v) of a virtual output light flux is determined by performing interpolation calculation based on coordinates of a virtual light emitting point.

When an optical system is illuminated with illumination light fluxes emitted from respective input image points, an interference image generated by superimposing output light fluxes output from the optical system and a reference light flux coherent with the output light fluxes is imaged to acquire interference image data collectively including information of an interference image about all input image points. Diffractive optical light propagation simulation is performed to acquire a phase distribution associated with only light emitted from a single input image point at a position where reconstructed light fluxes to the respective output light fluxes are separated into each light flux. In each input image point, this simulation is performed to acquire a phase distribution on an exit pupil plane.

A holographic display apparatus and a hologram optimization method for the apparatus are provided. The holographic display apparatus includes a focus-forming optical element configured to form a plurality of foci by receiving plane waves; a collimating lens configured to propagate, as plane waves, light incident through the plurality of foci; and a spatial light modulator configured to generate a holographic image by overlapping a plurality of plane waves incident from the collimating lens.

The invention relates to a method for observing a sample (15), comprising the illumination of the sample using a light source (11) and the acquisition of an image (Io) of the sample using an image sensor (16), the sample being disposed between the image sensor and the light source. Iterative steps are applied to the acquired image (Io), also referred to as a hologram, comprising: a single iterative numerical propagation (h), such as to estimate a complex image (A) of the sample in a reconstruction plane (P10) or in a detection plane (P0), in which the image sensor extends. The complex image can be used for the characterisation of the sample.

A system is provided for observing objects on a substrate which includes a light source that emits polarized light rectilinearly along a first direction, a holder that receives said substrate having a surface and includes objects, wherein at least one of the holder or the substrate are translucent or opaque, a detector that collects the backscattered light from the interaction between the light emitting by the light source and the objects, a polarization splitter and a quarter-wave plate wherein the polarization splitter and the quarter-wave plate are arranged so that the polarization splitter directs light towards the substrate through the quarter-wave plate, and wherein the light forms a beam and the system modifies the size of the beam. The system thus allows one to observe objects on a non-transparent substrate.

Among other things, a method comprises imaging a sample displaced between a sensor surface and a surface of a microscopy sample chamber to produce an image of at least a part of the sample. The image is produced using lensless optical microscopy, and the sample contains at least blood from a subject. The method also comprises automatically differentiating cells of different types in the image, generating a count of one or more cell types based on the automatic differentiation, and deriving a radiation dose the subject has absorbed based on the count.

Provided is a holographic microscope including an input optical system configured to emit polarized input beam, a first beam splitter configured to emit an object beam by reflecting a portion of the polarized input beam, and emit a reference beam by transmitting a remaining portion of the polarized input beam, a reference optical system configured to separate the reference beam into a first reference beam and a second reference beam, a camera configured to receive the first reference beam and the second reference beam and the object beam that is reflected by an inspection object, the camera including a micro polarizer array, wherein a first polarization axis of the first reference beam is perpendicular to a second polarization axis of the second reference beam.

A method of calculating a sub-hologram of a virtual image point for an optical system includes determining an area delimited by straight line paths from the virtual image point to the perimeter of an entrance pupil of a viewer. The area includes a first area component on a first virtual replica of a display device and a second area component on a second virtual replica of the display device. The method also includes determining a first sub-hologram component of the virtual image point within the first area component and a second sub-hologram component of the virtual image point within the second area component. The method additionally includes superimposing the first sub-hologram component and second sub-hologram component to form a sub-hologram of the virtual image point. The method further includes applying a local phase-ramp function to at least one of the first area component and second area component.

A method of structured illumination digital holography includes: (a) providing a structured illumination generating unit and binarization random number encoding unit to generate a coded structured illumination pattern; (b) sampling at least two patterns with phase shift which synthesized as a single structured illumination pattern to be encoded; (c) forming a single digital hologram, and wavefront reconstructing the single digital hologram; (d) performing a compressive sensing approach to recover the object wave with at least two phase shift patterns; and (e) reconstructing the separation of overlap spectrum, to obtain an image covering bandpass spectrum with different high frequency and low frequency.

The present invention can realize both a transmission type and a reflection type, and provides a holographic microscope which can exceed the resolution of the conventional optical microscope, a hologram data acquisition method for a high-resolution image, and a high-resolution hologram image reconstruction method. In-line spherical wave reference light (L) is recorded in a hologram (I.sub.LR) using spherical wave reference light (R), and an object light (O.sup.j) and an illumination light (Q.sup.j) are recorded in a hologram (I.sup.j.sub.OQR) using a spherical wave reference light (R) by illuminating the object with an illumination light (Q.sup.j, j=1, . . . , N) which is changed its incident direction. From those holograms, a hologram (J.sup.j.sub.OQL), from which the component of the reference light (R) is removed, is generated, and from the hologram, a light wave (h.sup.j) is generated. A light wave (c.sup.j) of the illumination light (Q.sup.j) is separated from the light wave (h.sup.j), and using its phase component (.sup.j=c.sup.j/|c.sup.j|), a phase adjustment reconstruction light wave is derived and added up as (H.sub.P=h.sup.j/.sup.j), and an object image (S.sub.P=|H.sub.P|.sup.2) is reconstructed.