Illumination system contributing zooming function to lensless digital holographic microscope by using lightguide incorporated with volume holographic optical elements

Illumination systems play a crucial role in determining the image quality of lens- less images. In this paper, we propose an illumination system that uses a light guide with a volume holographic optical element (VHOE) and apply it to a lensless digital holographic microscope (DHM). The light guide has an in-coupler that is maturely developed for AR/MR applications. A VHOE serves as an in-coupler and directs the laser light into the guiding mode. Unlike the conventional light guide in the AR/MR application, the out-coupler is changed to a functional VHOE to diffract a divergent spherical wave. Through clever arrangement, the interference fringe caught by the CMOS image sensor can be used to retrieve the tested image. By controlling the focusing point of the diffracted spherical wave, the field of view (FOV) and the resolution can be adjusted. We have demonstrated the use of different VHOEs to perform different FOV and image resolutions. Thus, a zoomable-compact lensless DHM with holographic light guide technology is achievable.