A phase-contrast microscope includes a light source section configured to emit light; a light guide including a plurality of optical fibers, the light guide transmitting the light emitted from the light source section through the plurality of optical fibers; and an object lens including a lens and an annular phase film, the annular phase film being on the side to which light passes through the lens, the object lens being configured to enlarge an image on a sample irradiated with the light transmitted by the light guide. The plurality of optical fibers include a plurality of emission faces arranged to form a ring, and the light guide is disposed in such a manner that the plurality of emission faces are in a conjugate position to the annular phase film.

The disclosed embodiments relate to multimodal imaging system, comprising: a fiber-coupled fluorescence imaging system, which operates based on ultra-violet (UV) excitation light; and a fiber-coupled optical coherence tomography (OCT) imaging system. The multimodal imaging system also includes a fiber optic interface comprising a single optical fiber, which facilitates light delivery to a sample-of-interest and collection of returned optical signals for both the fluorescence imaging system and the OCT imaging system. During operation of the system, the single optical fiber carries both UV light and coherent infrared light through two concentric light-guiding regions, thereby facilitating generation of precisely co-registered optical data from the fluorescence imaging system and the OCT imaging system.

The present invention refers to a method for high spatial resolution imaging comprising a phase plate or a spatial light modulator (SLM) device for STimulated Emission Depletion (STED) microscopy and Reversible Saturable OpticaL Fluorescence Transitions (RESOLFT) microscopy, where a bivortex pattern is imprinted on the said phase plate or SLM to generate a beam. The bivortex pattern allows some freedom in shaping the STED beam to improve the microscope's axial performance and optical sectioning capacity. The present invention further refers to a method for STED and RESOLFT microscopy comprising the step of modulating the optical phase of a laser using a phase plate or a spatial light modulator device with a phase mask comprising a bivortex with a tunable radius. The disclosed phase masks and methods of STED and RESOLFT microscopy may advantageously be applied to provide a hybrid 2D/3D STED regime but one with a significant reduction in the degrees of freedom for alignment relative to what is found in incoherent beam superpositions, thus providing an improvement in beam quality, namely a minimized central intensity and lower sensitivity to aberrations, resulting in an increased signal level and axial performance.

The present description relates to a device for line-scanning optical coherence tomographic microscopy. The device comprises an interferometric microscope comprising a reference arm, an object arm configured to receive an object, a beam splitter coupling said object arm and reference arm to a light source and to a sensor, and a first microscope objective arranged on said object arm. It further comprises a one-dimensional confocal spatial filtering device configured to interact with said light source in order to illuminate said object along a focal line located in an object space of the first microscope objective, and a device for unidirectional scanning of said focal line, which device is arranged on said object arm upstream of said first microscope objective and is configured to scan the focal line in a lateral direction (y) substantially perpendicular to an optical axis (z) of said first microscope objective.

An information processing apparatus that executes processing of obtaining, from an interference fringe image that is a two-dimensional distribution of intensity of interference fringes of object light and reference light, a phase difference image that is a two-dimensional distribution of a phase difference between the object light and the reference light, and obtaining a shape of an object to be observed based on the phase difference image includes at least one processor configured to acquire object-related information regarding the object to be observed, read out, from a storage unit in which the object-related information and a shape profile indicating the shape of the object to be observed are stored in association with each other, the shape profile corresponding to the acquired object-related information, and perform phase connection with respect to the phase difference image with reference to the read-out shape profile.

A cell area extraction unit (241) extracts a cell area in a phase image that is created based on a hologram obtained by in-line holographic microscope (IHM). A background value acquisition unit (242) obtains a background value from phase values at a plurality of positions outside the cell area. An intracellular phase value acquisition unit (243) averages a plurality of phase values on a sampling line set at a position close to the periphery of a cell, while avoiding a central portion in which the phase value may be lowered in the cell area, to obtain an intracellular phase value. A phase change amount calculation unit (244) obtains the difference between the intracellular phase value and the background value. A phase change amount determination unit (245) compares the value of the difference with thresholds in two levels to determine whether the cell is in an undifferentiated state or an undifferentiation deviant state. It is thereby possible to automatically make a correct determination while removing the influence of a theoretical measurement error by IHM.

The present description relates to a device for line-scanning optical coherence tomographic microscopy. The device comprises an interferometric microscope comprising a reference arm, an object arm configured to receive an object, a beam splitter coupling said object arm and reference arm to a light source and to a sensor, and a first microscope objective arranged on said object arm. It further comprises a one-dimensional confocal spatial filtering device configured to interact with said light source in order to illuminate said object along a focal line located in an object space of the first microscope objective, and a device for unidirectional scanning of said focal line, which device is arranged on said object arm upstream of said first microscope objective and is configured to scan the focal line in a lateral direction (y) substantially perpendicular to an optical axis (z) of said first microscope objective.

Systems, devices and methods for determining an orientation and a rotational mobility of the single point emitter using a duo-spot point spread function (PSF) phase mask are disclosed. The duo-spot PSF phase mask includes at least three partitions, in which each partition includes a phase delay ramp aligned along one of two phase delay axes. Each phase delay ramp includes a gradient of phase delays. Each partition includes a subset of a total area of the phase mask and the two phase delay axes are oriented in different directions. The duo-spot PSF phase mask is configured to produce a duo-spot PSF that includes two light spots. The relative brightness of the two spots encodes an orientation and a rotational mobility of the single point emitter.

An optical method of measurement and an optical apparatus for determining the spatial position of at least one luminous object on a sample. A sequence of at least two compact luminous distributions of different topological families is projected onto the sample, and light re-emitted by the at least one luminous object is detected. At least one optical image is generated for each luminous distribution on the basis of the light detected. The optical images are analyzed to obtain spatiotemporal information regarding the light re-emitted by the at least one luminous object, or location of the at least one luminous object.

An optical device comprises a shared phase modulation mask configured to impart a first phase modulation to light of a first wavelength, and imparts a second phase modulation to light of a second wavelength, an irradiation optical system configured to cause the light of the first wavelength and the light of the second wavelength to enter the same incident region in the phase modulation mask, and a light collecting optical system configured to collect the light of the first phase-modulated first wavelength and the light of the second phase-modulated second wavelength to form an image corresponding to a point spread function.