Design and implementation of a diffraction-based common-path digital holographic microscopy system with programmable beams

Digital holographic microscopy (DHM) is a non-destructive phase imaging technique that enables real-time study of the morphological information of living and non-living cells. In the present work, we use a liquid crystal spatial light modulator (SLM) and computer-generated holography technique to design and implement a diffraction common-path digital holographic microscopy (DC-DHM) system. The proposed DC-DHM system allows for the generation of user-defined beams with programmable controllability, thereby facilitating precise control over the angular separation between the object and reference beams, system aberrations correction, and real-time adjustment of the beam intensities. This leads to programmable optimization of system performance, resulting in a significant improvement in phase reconstruction accuracy of the sample under study. We present proof-of-concept simulation and experimental results to demonstrate the viability and efficiency of the proposed DC-DHM system.