Quantitative Phase and Intensity Microscopy Using Snapshot White Light Wavefront Sensing

Phase imaging techniques are an invaluable tool in microscopy for quickly examining thin transparent specimens. Existing methods are limited to either simple and inexpensive methods that produce only qualitative phase information (e.g. phase contrast microscopy, DIC), or significantly more elaborate and expensive quantitative methods. Here we demonstrate a low-cost, easy to implement microscopy setup for quantitative imaging of phase and bright field amplitude using collimated white light illumination.