  High space-bandwidth product with high spatial phase sensitivity is
indispensable for a single-shot quantitative phase microscopy (QPM) system. It
opens avenue for widespread applications of QPM in the field of biomedical
imaging. Temporally low coherence length light sources are generally
implemented to achieve high spatial phase sensitivity in QPM at the cost of
either reduced temporal resolution or smaller field of view (FOV). On the
contrary, high temporal coherence light sources like lasers are capable of
exploiting the full FOV of the QPM systems at the expense of less spatial phase
sensitivity. In the present work, we employed pseudo-thermal light source
(PTLS) in QPM which overcomes the limitations of conventional light sources.
The capabilities of PTLS over conventional light sources are systematically
studied and demonstrated on various test objects like USAF resolution chart and
thin optical waveguide (height ~ 8 nm). The spatial phase sensitivity of QPM in
case of PTLS is measured to be equivalent to that for white light source. The
high-speed and large FOV capabilities of PTLS based QPM is demonstrated by
high-speed imaging of live sperm cells that is limited by the camera speed and
by imaging extra-ordinary large FOV phase imaging on histopathology placenta
tissue samples.
