Phase compensation in digital holographic microscopy using a quantitative evaluation metric

This study presents a simple metric to quantitatively evaluate the compensation of phase distortions in digital holographic microscopy. The metric calculates the difference between the minimum and maximum values in an unwrapped phase image. A phase compensation method based on the metric is proposed. Both the tilt and curvature distortions can be automatically compensated using this method, and specimen-free zones are unnecessary. It is also suitable for thick objects located in wide areas. The method using this evaluation metric has been tested and validated on several samples. With strong robustness and low computational complexity, this approach can result in accurate and effective quantitative phase imaging in holographic microscopy.