A method and technique for observing the stereo pseudocolor image of phasechange of objects

A real-time white light stereo pseudocolor encoding method and technique in a microscope is presented, which demonstrated that the phase information o f an object is not totally lost in incoherent imaging. The image system is an improved microscope and attached optical elements can be stacked togethe r in the microscope tube, so the structure is compact. The irradiance distr ibution at the output plane of the microscope is obtained by means of the t heory of partially coherent light. At the conditions of that the aperture s top and focal length of condenser are a right magnitude, and the illuminati ve light source is incoherent or partially coherent, the theoretical analys is indicates that the irradiance distribution at output plane is presented by the stereo pseudocolor image which is characterized by the phase rate-of -change function of input object. A bleached holographic grating as an inpu t object is observed, and its optical parameters are measured directly. Exp erimental results are discussed, which basically agreed with theoretical an alysis. (C) 2000 American Institute of Physics. [S0034-6748(00)00201-X].