Synthetic optical holography for rapid nanoimaging.

Area of Science:

• Optics and Photonics
• Materials Science
• Microscopy Techniques

Background:

• Holography is crucial for phase imaging across various microscopy types.
• Serial image acquisition in scanning optical microscopy hinders traditional holography.
• Quantitative phase imaging is essential for nanoscale material characterization.

Purpose of the Study:

• Introduce synthetic optical holography (SOH) for scanning optical microscopy.
• Enable fast, quantitative phase-resolved imaging with technical simplicity.
• Demonstrate simultaneous visible and infrared frequency operation.

Main Methods:

• Developed synthetic optical holography (SOH) for scanning microscopy.
• Integrated SOH into a scattering-type scanning near-field optical microscope (s-SNOM).
• Utilized a single reference arm for dual-frequency operation.

Main Results:

• Achieved unprecedented speed in quantitative phase-resolved near-field imaging.
• Successfully screened grain boundaries in CVD-grown graphene.
• Acquired 65-kilopixel images in 26 seconds and 2.3-megapixel images in 13 minutes.

Conclusions:

• SOH overcomes limitations of traditional holography in scanning microscopy.
• The technique offers rapid, non-invasive nanoscale imaging capabilities.
• SOH has potential applications in other scanning imaging techniques like confocal microscopy.