Numerical Optimization Enhances Phase-Contrast

For proving, that the numerical optimization enhances the phase-contrast of a brightfield microscope, a standard upright research microscope ZEISS Axio Examiner.Z1 equiped with home-made SLM using a high-resolution smartphone display (iPhone 4S, Apple, USA) in the condenser plane, was used for the first tests. In comparison to LED-condensers, as presented in [37 (link)], a ZEMAX simulation of the koehler-illumination using an LCD in the aperture plane shows two-times better light-efficiency, which also improves the SNR and allows lower exposure times of the camera.
The higher pixel-density compared to the LED-matrix also allows the calculation using the TCC without introducing large errors or artefacts in the acquired intensity images and avoids artifacts due to missing sampling points.