Abstract

Many available techniques for microscopy depend, for their proper operation, on object related polarization variations of the interrogating light. Examples of such systems include the polarization microscope and the Nomarski differential interference microscope. The output signals from these systems are directly proportional to cos(δϕ), where δϕ is the change in the phase of the orthogonal polarizations of the light beam due to object features. For a small value of δϕ, the strength of the output signal depends on the square of this variation and thus the sensitivity of the system is greatly limited.

© 1986 Optical Society of America