Real-time quantitative phase imaging with a spatial phase-shifting algorithm

Abstract

This Letter reports on the use of a spatial phase-shifting algorithm in a fast, straightforward method of real-time quantitative phase imaging. The computation time for phase extraction is five times faster than a Fourier transform and twice as fast as a Hilbert transform. The fact that the phase extraction from an interferogram of 512 x 512 pixels takes less than 8.93 ms with a typical desktop computer suggests the proposed method can be readily applied to highspeed dynamic quantitative phase imaging. The proposed method of quantitative phase imaging is effective and sufficiently general for application to the dynamic phenomena of biological samples. (C) 2011 Optical Society of America