Degeneration of Fraunhofer diffraction on bacterial colonies due to their light focusing properties examined in the digital holographic microscope system.

The degeneration of Fraunhofer diffraction conditions in the optical system with converging spherical wave illumination for bacteria species identification based on diffraction patterns is analyzed by digital holographic methods. The obtained results have shown that the colonies of analyzed bacteria species act as biological lenses with the time-dependent light focusing properties, which are characterized and monitored by means of phase retrieval from sequentially captured digital holograms. This significantly affects the location of Fraunhofer patterns observation plane, which is continuously shifted across optical axis in time.