Patent ID: 8184298

Claim:
A method for deriving a quantitative phase contrast image of a specimen, the method comprising steps of: a. illuminating the specimen through a condenser annulus that introduces a phase delay that is an integral multiple of π/2 with illuminating light characterized by a coherence length substantially shorter than 10 micrometers; b. scanning a focus to a plurality of depths within the specimen; c. spatially Fourier transforming light transmitted through the specimen at each of the plurality of depths; d. temporally modulating at least one of the phase and amplitude of the spatial frequency components of the spatially transformed image to obtain interferograms at a plurality of relative phase offsets; e. detecting an intensity image of the specimen plane as modulated with respect to spatial frequency components; and f. deconvolving the intensity image at a plurality of spatially modulated instances to obtain a three-dimensional phase representation of the specimen at each of a plurality of distances relative to a fiducial plane.