Nova Technology, Inc., is investigating a microscope for surface deformation mapping. The optical setup is similar to a TwymanGreen interferometer in which a laser beam is used to illuminate both the microscope specimen and a reference surface. The scattered light from the specimen is mixed with the scattered light from the reference surface at the image plane of the microscope objective. By monitoring the speckle intensity with a CCD array, the phase change in the speckle is detected for surface displacement measurement. Intermittently, the reference illumination is blocked off so that surface deformation can be mapped using a speckle pattern correlation technique. In addition, the microscope can be illuminated by an incoherent light source for conventional imaging. The images from three different operating modes are then processed and integrated for display.The potential commercial application as described by the awardee: This microscope is intended for use by microbiologists and developmental biologists for investigating the morphological change in cells and other biological samples. It can also be used by materials scientists for micro-surface studies.
