France-based PhaseView has opened PhaseView USA (San Diego, CA) to market its Digital Phase Reconstruction technology, which provides three-dimensional (3-D) visualization and measurements of microscopic objects at nanometer resolution (comparable to phase-shift interferometric techniques) without complex and costly optics or accessories.
Starting from the fundamental Maxwell electromagnetic equations, PhaseView developed a numerical technology that couples the spatial variation of the electromagnetic power to the 3-D shape of an illuminated object. Relative to existing theories of electromagnetic wave propagation, the PhaseView approach takes into account the vector nature of the electromagnetic field as opposed to the typical scalar-field hypothesis and uses a system of differential equations to numerically reconstruct the phase of the beam-and the corresponding 3-D form of an object-directly from the intensity of its reflected signal. Although the PhaseView technology is software-intensive, the hardware consists of a simple optical setup that is easily retrofitted to existing microscopes. The hardware attaches to a control box that connects by USB cable to the host computer on which the analysis software is installed. Contact David McGhee at [email protected].