Abstract

The imaging of optical microphase objects is an important research area attracting much successful effort, such as the phase contrast method and the center dark field method. Generally, the application is not as simple as the theory suggests. In this paper, we have analyzed the interaction between optical phase objects and light, specifically the spatial frequency spectra. The characters for imaging phase objects and a potential way to obtain it have been studied based on this analysis. As a result, a theory to summarize those methods and a π phase plate technique have been developed. The new technique for imaging the phase grating has been utilized in these experiments. This process resulted in successful imaging of the acoustic phase grating, and provided accurate and valuable information. Compared with other methods, the π phase plate method has many advantages, for example, it is clear and easy to understand theoretically, and it has reduced the requirements for the apparatus, especially the phase compensatory plate. Therefore the π phase plate method has great potential in both future research of imaging and industrial manufacturing.

© 1991 Optical Society of America