Coherent Gradient Sensing Microscopy: Microinterferometric Technique for Quantitative Cell Detection

Micro-CGS, an integration of the interferometric optical method Coherent Gradient Sensing (CGS) [1-3] with an inverted microscope, is introduced. Micro-CGS extends the capabilities of Classical CGS into the cellular level. As such, it provides full-field, real-time, micro-interferometric quantitative imaging. Micro-CGS is based on the introduction of a microscope objective into the classical CGS setup. An experimental setup is detailed and resulting interferograms are shown. A digital image processing program is created to compute specimen curvature from the given fringe patterns. The experimental method is validated by the successful measurement of the curvature of 30-micron glass microspheres.