Quantitative Wide Field Polarized Light Microscope

Abstract

An embodiment of the present invention provides for a polarized-light microscope (PLM) in an unconventional bistatic configuration that avoids aberrations that limit the field-of-view (FOV) of conventional PLMs. An embodiment of the PLM provides one or more of a polarization FOV, with accuracy better than 5% overall elemental error of measured Mueller-matrix elements, over 200× larger than those of conventional PLMs, for both reflective and transmissive samples. A further embodiment provides a method to achieve unlimited polarization FOV for reflective samples by stitching together micrographs obtained as the sample or the microscope is translated, without suffering from seam discontinuities that arise when stitching micrographs of conventional PLMs without digital blending. Embodiments described herein achieve analytical or quantitative wide-field polarized-light microscopy applicable, with suitable models, to characterization of material structures, microstructures, and textures, for instance those associated with crystallographic structure and the resulting micrographs produced therefrom.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.