- They’re called digital holographic microscopes. Until now however, they haven’t been able to make images of high enough quality to use to diagnose diseases.
- The holographic microscope works by beaming partially coherent light down through the sample the pathologist wants to examine. The light projects a holographic image of the sample onto an image-sensing chip, which is positioned below the sample. The chip collects data about the light and sends the data to a computer, where specially developed algorithms reconstruct a high-resolution image of the sample.
- Researchers are especially interested in digital holographic microscopes because their parts can be fairly cheap.