Particle imaging using a transmission wide-field phase confocal microscope

A phase-sensitive wide field transmission microscope, combining the advantages of both interferometric and confocal techniques, has been developed and applied to analysis of particulates, both in dry powder form and in suspensions. The microscope has also been used in detecting defects in crystals. Confocal operation is achieved by superimposing speckle illumination of a reference beam in a Mach-Zehnder interferometer with a matched speckle pattern of the object beam. It is shown that the phase measurement enables particle size to be determined even when the particle is smaller than the focal spot size. The data acquisition time is below 1ms, making the system suitable for dynamic process measurement. The experimental results are in good agreement with modelled results giving rise to the possibility of simultaneous determination of both the size and refractive index of small particles.