Contrast transfer function with sinusoidal illumination for super resolved phase imaging

TLDR: In this paper, a propagation based super resolution phase imaging technique using Contrast Transfer Function (CTF) and structured illumination is proposed to enhance the spatial resolution of the retrieved phase images.

Abstract: Quantitative phase imaging (QPI) has emerged as a powerful computational tool that enables imaging unla- belled specimens with high contrast. It finds applications in microscopy, refractive index mapping , biomedical imaging and surface measurement. Several techniques including interferometry, holography, iterative methods and Transport of Intensity Equation have been developed over the years for QPI. However, the spatial resolution of the retrieved phase images are limited by the diffraction limit of the imaging system. Prior work on Super resolution phase imaging has been primarily focused on holography based techniques which require illumination sources with high coherence , phase unwrapping and high experimental stability. In this work, we propose a propagation based super resolution phase imaging technique using Contrast Transfer Function(CTF) and structured illumination. An enhancement in resolution by two folds is demonstrated using numerical results.