Characterization of micro-plastics in water samples by digital holography

Micro-plastics are hazardous pollutants of marine waters and can potentially become part of the food chain. Although quantifying the amount of micro-plastics in marine water is a highly wanted goal, the detection methods proposed so far fail. Here we use Digital Holography (DH) in microscopy configuration to study the optical properties of micro-plastics with the aim to develop a full field imaging system to detect them in a heterogeneous water sample. The access to the complex field diffracted by the object provides precious information exploitable for the scope, making DH promising as a high-throughput imaging tool for inspection of marine pollutants.