Hybrid shear force feedback/scanning quantitative phase microscopy applied to subsurface imaging

Quantitative phase microscopy allows for the study of the surface morphology and dynamics of transparent biological specimens. Although phase data often contains coupled subsurface information, decoupling the surface and subsurface components is often very difficult or impossible. We hereby present a simple procedure which exploits simultaneous obtained quantitative phase and shear-force feedback topography data to extract subsurface sample information. Our results reveal subsurface features in fabricated samples and fish erythrocytes. (c) 2009 Optical Society of America