Lens-free digital in-line holographic imaging for wide field-of-view, high-resolution and real-time monitoring of complex microscopic objects

Abstract

Lens-free inline Holographic Microscopy (LHM) holds great promise for biomedical and industrial applications thanks to its conceptual simplicity. However, the challenge lies in achieving an image quality comparable to conventional microscopes. We demonstrate a high-throughput LHM system that is able to resolve 1.23μm-thin lines on a standard USAF 1951 test target with 1.67μm pixels at the full field-of-view (>29mm²). The system is based on a unique multiwavelength iterative-phase-retrieval method, using customized hardware and real-time post-processing software. We have evaluated our system in experiments ranging from single-cell inspection to in-vitro imaging of stem-cell colonies.