RESUMO

The lack of equipped healthcare infrastructure in isolated hard-to-reach zones exposes their population to a higher risk of complications in common diseases. With a timely diagnosis setting a life-altering difference, worldwide efforts have been conducted for the development of point-of-care testing (PoCT) with cost-effective devices. Among the most common interests in PoCT is the analysis of blood smear samples, as they can help to detect, diagnose, and monitor a wide range of diseases and disorders. With microscopy being the traditional tool for these analyses, a significative advance has been the development of cost-effective digital holographic microscopy systems, driven in part by its label-free imaging capabilities that waive the need for any sample preprocessing. Here, a robust and portable digital lensless holographic microscope, functionalized for the analysis of non-preprocessed blood smear samples in PoCT environments, is presented, and its viability is tested in the observation of red blood cells. The device uses an optical fiber with a cone-shaped tip instead of a pinhole, which ensures the sturdiness of the system and eliminates the need for challenging alignment. While the distances of the microscope can be tuned before fabrication, the herein-reported operational parameters are functionalized for the specific analysis of blood samples.

RESUMO

The reduction of speckle noise by physically changing the pupil of the imaging system, as first envisioned in optical holography, is experimentally applied to a digital holographic microscope (DHM). The imaging pupil of a DHM, operating in image plane telecentric-afocal architecture, is changed in a controlled way between successive recordings, allowing the shooting of multiple partially-decorrelated holograms. Averaging the numerically reconstructed holograms yields amplitude and/or phase images with reduced speckle noise. Experimental results of biological specimens and a phase-only resolution test show the feasibility to recover micron-sized features in images with reduced speckle noise.

RESUMO

In this work, a set of analytical expressions to tailor the numerical aperture of cone-shaped step optical fibers is proposed. The expressions are derived from the geometrical study of light-ray tracing at the cone-shaped tip of a regular step-index optical fiber. Analysis of the different physical phenomena that can take place at the tip of the fiber led to numerical apertures ranging from 0 to 1.5 which can be achieved via a variety of cone angles, providing great versatility in the design of light sources or light collecting devices based on step-index optical fibers.

RESUMO

The numerical reconstruction of digitally recorded holograms suffers from speckle noise. An accelerated method that uses general-purpose computing in graphics processing units to reduce that noise is shown. The proposed methodology utilizes parallelized algorithms to record, reconstruct, and superimpose multiple uncorrelated holograms of a static scene. For the best tradeoff between reduction of the speckle noise and processing time, the method records, reconstructs, and superimposes six holograms of 1024 × 1024 pixels in 68 ms; for this case, the methodology reduces the speckle noise by 58% compared with that exhibited by a single hologram. The fully parallelized method running on a commodity graphics processing unit is one order of magnitude faster than the same technique implemented on a regular CPU using its multithreading capabilities. Experimental results are shown to validate the proposal.

RESUMO

By engineering the light from a light-emitting diode (LED) the noises present in digital lensless holographic microscopy (DLHM) are reduced. The partially coherent light from an LED is tailored to produce a spherical wavefront with limited coherence time and the spatial coherence needed by DLHM to work. DLHM with this engineered light source is used to image biological samples that cover areas of the order of mm(2). The ratio between the diameter of the area that is almost coherently illuminated to the diameter of the illumination area is utilized as parameter to quantify the performance of the DLHM with the engineered LED light source. Experimental results show that while the noises can be reduced effectively the spatial resolution can be kept in the micrometer range.

RESUMO

The number of colloidal particles per unit of volume that can be imaged correctly with digital lensless holographic microscopy (DLHM) is determined numerically. Typical in-line DLHM holograms with controlled concentration are modeled and reconstructed numerically. By quantifying the ratio of the retrieved particles from the reconstructed hologram to the number of the seeding particles in the modeled intensity, the limit of concentration of the colloidal suspensions up to which DLHM can operate successfully is found numerically. A new shadow density parameter for spherical illumination is defined. The limit of performance of DLHM is determined from a graph of the shadow density versus the efficiency of the microscope.

Assuntos

RESUMO

Color digital lensless holographic microscopy with micrometer resolution is presented. Multiwavelength illumination of a biological sample and a posteriori color composition of the amplitude images individually reconstructed are used to obtain full-color representation of the microscopic specimen. To match the sizes of the reconstructed holograms for each wavelength, a reconstruction algorithm that allows for choosing the pixel size at the reconstruction plane independently of the wavelength and the reconstruction distance is used. The method is illustrated with experimental results.

RESUMO

We present an automatic procedure for 3D tracking of micrometer-sized particles with high-NA digital lensless holographic microscopy. The method uses a two-feature approach to search for the best focal planes and to distinguish particles from artifacts or other elements on the reconstructed stream of the holograms. A set of reconstructed images is axially projected onto a single image. From the projected image, the centers of mass of all the reconstructed elements are identified. Starting from the centers of mass, the morphology of the profile of the maximum intensity along the reconstruction direction allows for the distinguishing of particles from others elements. The method is tested with modeled holograms and applied to automatically track micrometer-sized bubbles in a sample of 4 mm3 of soda.

RESUMO

Conventionally, for modeling in-line lensless holograms of systems with high numerical apertures and diverging spherical illumination, the samples are considered as an ensemble of secondary point sources. On following Huygens's principle, the in-line hologram is the result of the amplitude superposition of the secondary spherical wavefronts with the wavefront originated in the point source. Albeit simple, this approach limits the shapes of the objects that can be modeled and the computation time rises with the complexity of the sample. In this work, we present a diffraction-based approach to model in-line lensless holograms. Samples with any shape or size can be modeled for in-line holographic systems with numerical apertures up to 0.57. The method is successfully applied to model objects of intricate submicrometer structures and/or multiple samples lying within a unique sample volume.

RESUMO

Due to analytical and numerical difficulties, the propagation of optical fields in any state of spatial coherence is traditionally computed under severe approximations. The paraxial approach in the Fresnel-Fraunhofer domain is one of the most widely used. These approximations provide a rough knowledge of the actual light behavior as it propagates, which is not enough for supporting applications, such as light propagation under a high numerical aperture (NA). In this paper, a non-approximated model for the propagation of optical fields in any state of spatial coherence is presented. The method is applicable in very practical cases, as high-NA propagations, because of its simplicity of implementation. This approach allows for studying unaware behaviors of light as it propagates. The light behavior close to the diffracting transmittances can also be analyzed with the aid of the proposed tool.

Assuntos

RESUMO

A method for numerical reconstruction of digitally recorded holograms with variable magnification is presented. The proposed strategy allows for smaller, equal, or larger magnification than that achieved with Fresnel transform by introducing the Bluestein substitution into the Fresnel kernel. The magnification is obtained independent of distance, wavelength, and number of pixels, which enables the method to be applied in color digital holography and metrological applications. The approach is supported by experimental and simulation results in digital holography of objects of comparable dimensions with the recording device and in the reconstruction of holograms from digital in-line holographic microscopy.

RESUMO

A novel description of interference and diffraction with fields in arbitrary states of spatial coherence is introduced in the framework of the phase-space representation. The field is modeled as produced by radiant and virtual point sources. The first ones emit the radiant power of the field, independently of its spatial coherence state, and the second ones emit the modulating energy in strong dependence on such state. This energy can take on positive and negative values that produce the interference and diffraction patterns after adding them to the radiant energy. Radiant and virtual point sources at a given plane can be arranged over two distinct layers, which can be brought together to provide a unified structure of point sources for the field at such plane. So, the coincidence of specific radiant and virtual sources at the same point induces a further type: the dual point source. Descriptions of diffraction arrangements, Young's experiment with diffraction effects, and some implications of this model are discussed.

RESUMO

Within the framework of the phase-space representation of random electromagnetic fields provided by electromagnetic spatial coherence wavelets, and by using the Fresnel-Arago laws for interference and polarization as an analysis tool, the meaning of the spatial coherence-polarization tensor and its invariance under transformations is studied. The results give new insight into the definition and properties of the complex degree of spatial coherence by showing that its invariance is not required for properly describing the behavior of random electromagnetic fields within the scope of physically measurable quantities.

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We discuss Young's experiment with electromagnetic random fields at arbitrary states of coherence and polarization within the framework of the electric spatial coherence wavelets. The use of this approach for the electromagnetic spatial coherence theory allows us to envisage the existence of polarization domains inside the observation plane. We show that it is possible to locally control those polarization domains by means of the correlation properties of the electromagnetic wave. To show the validity of this alternative approach, we derive by means of numerical modeling the classical Fresnel-Arago interference laws.

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We report a technique to determine the 3D contour of objects with dimensions of at least 4 orders of magnitude larger than the illumination optical wavelength. Our proposal is based on the numerical reconstruction of the optical wave field of digitally recorded holograms. The required modulo 2pi phase map in any contouring process is obtained by means of the direct subtraction of two phase-contrast images under different illumination angles to create a phase-difference image of a still object. Obtaining the phase-difference images is only possible by using the capability of numerical reconstruction of the complex optical field provided by digital holography. This unique characteristic leads us to a robust, reliable, and fast procedure that requires only two images. A theoretical analysis of the contouring system is shown, with verification by means of numerical and experimental results.

RESUMO

The recently introduced concept of spatial coherence wavelets is generalized to describe the propagation of electromagnetic fields in the free space. For this aim, the spatial coherence wavelet tensor is introduced as an elementary amount, in terms of which the formerly known quantities for this domain can be expressed. It allows for the analysis of the relationship between the spatial coherence properties and the polarization state of the electromagnetic wave. This approach is completely consistent with the recently introduced unified theory of coherence and polarization for random electromagnetic beams, but it provides further insight about the causal relationship between the polarization states at different planes along the propagation path.

RESUMO

A moiré-effect-based procedure used to measure the wavelength of coherent sources is shown. Two plane waves, individually coherent but mutually incoherent and located at the entrance pupil of a Michelson interferometer with slightly tilted mirrors, generate a moiré pattern at the output plane. The spatial period of that moiré pattern is determined by the spatial frequencies of the interferograms superimposed on intensity. Thus the spatial frequency of such moiré patterns allows the establishment of a ratio between the wavelengths of the sources that illuminate the interferometer. This ratio can be applied for the accurate determination of determining an unknown wavelength in terms of a reference wavelength, as we show both theoretically and experimentally.