Recent advancements and perspective about digital holography: A super-tool in biomedical and bioengineering fields

Digital holographic microscopy (DHM) has become a technique utilized widely for sample inspection, having many applications in different fields of science and technology. The capability for recovering the complex amplitude distribution scattered by the sample permits numerical refocus after acquisition and quantitative phase imaging. These are two of the features that make DHM a very versatile microscopy technique. The standard DHM system is based on a Mach-Zehnder interferometer that can be configured for operating in transmission or reflection modes, working in either the in-line or off-axis architecture. With the benefit of such special characteristics, DHM is used in basic research as much in the industry. Here we review some of the recent advancements for the label-free inspection of biological samples and the study of thin films.