Lateral shearing common-path digital holographic microscopy based on a slightly trapezoid Sagnac interferometer.

ABSTRACT

We propose a compact and easy-to-align lateral shearing common-path digital holographic microscopy, which is based on a slightly trapezoid Sagnac interferometer to create two laterally sheared beams and form off-axis geometry. In this interferometer, the two beams pass through a set of identical optical elements in opposite directions and have nearly the same optical path difference. Without any vibration isolation, the temporal stability of the setup is found to be around 0.011 rad. Compared with highly simple lateral shearing interferometer, the off-axis angle of the setup can be easily adjusted and quantitatively controlled, meanwhile the image quality is not degraded. The experiments for measuring the static and dynamic specimens are performed to demonstrate the capability and applicability.