Quantitative phase-contrast imaging with compact digital holographic microscope employing Lloyd's mirror.

Digital holographic microscopy (DHM) is one of the most effective techniques used for quantitative phase imaging of cells. Here we present a compact, easy to implement, portable, and very stable DHM setup employing a self-referencing Lloyd's mirror configuration. The microscope is constructed using a diode laser source and a CMOS sensor, making it cost effective. The reconstruction of recorded holograms yields the amplitude and phase information of the object. The temporal stability of the presented technique was found to be around 0.9 nm without any vibration compensation, which makes it ideal for studying cell profile changes. This aspect of the technique is demonstrated by studying membrane fluctuations of red blood cells.