By use of the Fourier decomposition of a low-coherence optical image field into two spatial components that can be controllably shifted in phase with respect to each other, a new high-transverse-resolution quantitative-phase microscope has been developed. The technique transforms a typical optical microscope into a quantitative-phase microscope, with high accuracy and a path-length sensitivity ...

A compact cryogenic Kerr microscope for operation in the small volume of high-field magnets is described. It is suited for measurements both in Voigt and Faraday configurations. Coupled with a pulsed laser source, the microscope is used to measure the time-resolved Kerr rotation response of semiconductor microstructures with approximately 1 mum spatial resolution. The microscope was designed to...

In-vivo imaging can be achieved with a coherent-fiber-bundle based confocal reflectance microscope. Such a microscope could provide the means to detect pre-cancerous lesions in the cervix by characterizing cells' nuclear-to-cytoplasmic ratio. In this paper we present the design of such a fiber confocal reflectance microscope, with an emphasis on its optical sub-systems. The optical sub-systems ...

The analysis of electron micrographs by optical diffraction was introduced recently by Klug & Berger (1964). Their experiments were conducted with a special diffractometer designed for use with diffracting masks up to several inches in diameter. A method is described here for using a conventional light microscope as an optical diffractometer which can accept masks up to 5 mm in diameter. A 100-...

We investigated polarization dependence of the Raman modes in black phosphorus (BP) using five different excitation wavelengths. The crystallographic orientation was determined by comparing polarized optical microscopy with high-resolution transmission electron microscopy analysis. In polarized Raman spectroscopy, the B2g mode shows the same polarization dependence regardless of the excitation ...

In undergraduate optics laboratory, one thing that is not easily achieved is quantitative measurement of optical phase. The reason is that optical phase measurement usually requires expensive interferometers. We demonstrate measurement of relative optical phase shift upon total internal reflection. Total internal reflection, though known by every student of optics, is remembered by 100% reflect...

We propose and experimentally verify a novel approach to achieve phase-coherence orthogonally polarized optical single sideband (OSSB) modulation with a tunable optically carrier-to-sideband ratio (OCSR). In our scheme, the orthogonally polarized OSSB signal is achieved using a dual-polarization quadrature phase shift keying (DP-QPSK) modulator without an optical band-pass filter (OBPF). Theref...

In microsystems applications from micro-assembly to biological observation and manipulation, the optical microscope remains one of the most important tools. However, it suffers from the well known trade-off between resolution and field of view. Traditional solutions involve moving the sample under the microscope using a moving stage or moving the microscope itself, and switching between low and...