Quantitative retardance imaging of biological samples using quadriwave lateral shearing interferometry

Sherazade Aknoun (1, 2) , Pierre Bon (2, 3) , Julien Savatier (2) , Benoit Wattellier (1) , Serge Monneret (2)

1 PHASICS SA, XTEC
2 MOSAIC - MOSAIC
3 LP2N - Laboratoire Photonique, Numérique et Nanosciences

We describe a new technique based on the use of a high-resolution quadri-wave lateral shearing interferometer to perform quantitative linear retardance and birefringence measurements on biological samples. The system combines quantitative phase images with varying polarization excitation to create retardance images. This technique is compatible with living samples and gives information about the local retardance and structure of their anisotropic components. We applied our approach to collagen fibers leading to a birefringence value of (3.4 +/- 0.3) . 10(-3) and to living cells, showing that cytoskeleton can be imaged label-free.

Keywords: OPTICAL COHERENCE TOMOGRAPHY; BIREFRINGENCE; COLLAGEN; DIGITAL HOLOGRAPHIC MICROSCOPY; POLARIZED PHASE MICROSCOPY; MATRICES; RESOLUTION; TRANSPARENT; LIVING CELLS; REFRACTIVE-INDEX

Domains: Life Sciences [q-bio]; Sensory Organs; Quantitative Methods [q-bio.QM]; Optics [physics.optics]; Optics / Photonic; Signal and Image processing

Sherazade Aknoun, Pierre Bon, Julien Savatier, Benoit Wattellier, Serge Monneret. Quantitative retardance imaging of biological samples using quadriwave lateral shearing interferometry. Optics Express, 2015, 23 (12), pp.16383-16406. ⟨hal-01203256⟩