2. Interference of two and multiple waves

1. Introduction

104 Optical Interferometry

the lens.

biological objects.

the research [14].

be checked for in various publications [1–4].

studies of solid, liquid, or gaseous mediums [5–10].

If a rough object is illuminated at some angle or a transparent object is illuminated by coherent radiation via matte glass, an inhomogeneous or a speckle is generated in the image plane. Speckles of random brightness and size are generated as a result of mutual interference of multiple waves with random amplitudes and phases. A random radiation intensity value at any point of the image plane can be regarded as resulting from superposition of multiple waves arriving from the area in the neighborhood of the conjugate point in the object plane. Minimum transverse speckle size 2bs is related to the linear resolution of the lens 2as, with formula as ¼ bs=m, where m is magnification generated by

At present, the statistic properties of stationary speckles have been well studied, and they can

If the phases of sounding waves vary due to the processes occurring on the surface of the reflecting object or inside a transparent body, the speckle pattern will vary. Speckle dynamics manifests itself as a speckle shift and (or) a change of their structure. At present, there are numerous papers on application of this phenomenon and interference of speckle fields during

The speckles generated by biological objects have been called biospeckles in the literature. Some researchers mean that biospeckles are speckle dynamics due to the processes occurring in biological objects. Below, we are going to regard biospeckles as speckles generated by

There is vast literature on the properties of biospeckles generated by various objects: seeds, fruit, vegetables, plant leaves, bacteria, skin, patients' extremities, etc. Numerous examples of such studies can, for example, be found in a monograph [11]. Despite a large number of publications on biospeckles, there is just one technique implemented in clinical practice. This technique was originally proposed in Ref. [12], and it permits determination of the blood flow velocity in the blood vessels of the patients' retinas or extremities. The latest publications aiming at upgrading of the technique can be checked for in Ref. [13]. Successful application of this technique might be related to the fact that authors developed its theory at a certain stage of

When live cells are sounded by coherent waves, the intracellular processes can alter the amplitudes and phases of the waves, thus changing the speckle image of an object. This provides an opportunity to study intracellular processes by the features of biospeckle dynamics in principle so that, for example, the problem of therapeutic drug management could be solved. That is why establishing of the relation between the physical-chemical intracellular processes and the biospeckle dynamics is a task vital both from the scientific and practical point of view. The authors explain absence of notable progress in solution of this problem by absence of a theory establishing a relation between the parameters that characterize the physical-chemical processes influencing the variation of the cell-sounding wave phases and the parameters characterizing speckle dynamics. Recently, one of the authors of this paper developed a similar theory for thin biological object so that this paper aims at familiarizing the
