Bidirectional phase retrieval: Protecting the imaging of cells and tissues from interference of noise on the carrier

Quantitative phase imaging plays a crucial role in biological imaging, with many phase retrieval technologies being particularly important. However, cells and tissues must be placed on certain carriers during imaging, such as glass slides, cell culture dishes, and cell culture boxes. Therefore, current unidirectional phase retrieval technologies are not suitable for biplane samples, causing the phase of the object to always be coupled with the phase of noise. As a solution, this study proposes bidirectional phase retrieval to independently analyze the phase of both planes in the sample. Considering that most biological samples can be treated as two planes: one representing the object and the other serving as noise. By decoupling the phase of the two planes, this approach protects biplane biological samples from interference caused by the noise plane, leading to more accurate phase retrieval. This innovation holds significant value for the advancement of biological imaging.