Differential interference contrast microscope using photonic crystals for phase imaging and three-dimensional shape reconstruction.

We present a differential interference contrast microscope using photonic crystals capable of real-time capture of both phase and amplitude components independently without moving parts. Unlike previous methods using rotating polarizers to discriminate each component, we propose using a special camera equipped with an arrayed polarizer whose instant polarization measurement allows real-time acquisition of the phase gradient information. A two-image algorithm is used to reconstruct the phase two-dimensional distribution of biological samples from the gradient information with a transmission-type microscope. We also talk about deducing a sample's three-dimensional shape for a reflection-type microscope. The efficiency of the method is demonstrated experimentally.