Advanced Digital Holographic Microscopy for Life Science Applications

For the last decade Digital Holographic Microscopy (DHM) demonstrated his huge capabilities in many applications. In particular, it provides the refocusing of objects recorded out of focus and the quantitative phase contrast imaging. We implemented several types of DHM using optical sources of reduced coherence that largely improve the image quality by removing the coherent artifact noise. Different microscope implementations are described up to a color version with LED illumination allowing to record color holograms in snap shot mode. With respect to classical microscopy, DHM provides an enlarged amount of information on the sample under test that can be exploited to implement powerful processing as automated 3D detection and automated holographic classification. The developed automated processes have been applied to life sciences applications, as the water monitoring for environmental analysis and the dynamical behavior of red blood cells.