Translational velocity measurement for single floating cell based on optical Fourier transform theory

This letter reports on translational velocity measurement, which is needed for tracking a low contrast cell. We propose a new optical spatial filtering method that is based on the optical Fourier transform theory. In this method, a pinhole is installed as a spatial filter on the optical Fourier transform plane. By means of this spatial filter, the arbitrary component of the spatial frequency is derived from the random refractive index distribution as the periodic light intensity distribution. By observing the changes of this light intensity, we can obtain the translational velocity of a low-contrast cell by means of a high-response photodiode.