Electrically-switched differential microscopy based on computing liquid-crystal platforms

Abstract Detection of transparent phase specimens especially biological cells with desired contrasts is of great importance in visual display and medical diagnosis. Due to the pure-phase nature, conventional detection approaches may damage samples or require complex operations. Computing liquid crystal (LC) is a thin and flat optical element with excellent capability in optical field modulation, which gives a feasible way to this issue from the perspective of analog optical computing. We here propose and experimentally implement an electrically switched two-dimensional (2D) differential microscopy based on computing LC platforms. The Pancharatnam–Berry phase LC polarization grating induces light’s spin separation to promote the 2D differential operation. Using the electrically tunable LC plate as the system phase retardance provider, the detecting mode can be flexibly switched from bright-field images to edge-enhanced images with desired contrasts. Remarkably, owing to the wavelength-independent feature closely related to the geometric phases, our proposed scheme is demonstrated to be applicable to the multi-wavelength microscopy imaging. These results open avenues to form real-time all-optical image processing and may facilitate multifunctional differential microscopy.