Polarization phase shifting in digital holographic microscopy

In the present work we have made use of polarization phase shifting in digital holographic microscopy (DHM) for three dimensional phase profiling of transmissive and reflecting microscopic samples. The Mach–Zehnder arrangement with proper polarizing elements (polarizer-masked cube beam splitter, quarter wave plate and a linear polarizer) is used for recording the phase-shifted digital holograms. The suggested procedure is simple and accurate and obviates the need of piezo devices for phase shifting. The phase profile of the specimen is reconstructed from the holograms by using standard phase shifting algorithms.