Digital holographic microscopy with physical phase compensation

An optical configuration for digital holographic microscopy is presented. Digital off-axis holograms are recorded by using a single-cube beam splitter in a nonconventional configuration so as to both split and combine a diverging spherical wavefront emerging from a microscope objective. When a plane numerical reference wavefront is used for the reconstruction of the recorded digital hologram, the phase curvature introduced by the microscope objective together with the illuminating wave to the object wave can be physically compensated.