Microscope system with on axis programmable Fourier transform filtering

•We propose an on-axis microscope optical system for programmable optical FT image processing.•A DIC imaging is obtained changing to a polarization modulation scheme.•.We have used a Hamamatsu LCOS-SLM free of flicker, which allows operating the system on axis.

We propose an on-axis microscope optical system to implement programmable optical Fourier transform image processing operations, taking advantage of phase and polarization modulation of a liquid crystal on silicon (LCOS) display. We use a Hamamatsu spatial light modulator (SLM), free of flickering, which therefore can be tuned to fully eliminate the zero order component of the encoded diffractive filter. This allows the realization of filtering operation on axis (as opposed to other systems in the literature that require operating off axis), therefore making use of the full space bandwidth provided by the SLM. The system is first demonstrated by implementing different optical processing operations based on phase-only blazed gratings such as phase contrast, band-pass filtering, or additive and substractive imaging. Then, a simple Differential interference contrast (DIC) imaging is obtained changing to a polarization modulation scheme, achieved simply by selecting a different incident state of polarization on the incident beam.