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Single Shot Lensless Interferenceless Phase Imaging of Biochemical Samples Using Synchrotron Near Infrared Beam
https://doi.org/10.3390/HMAM2-14150
(registering DOI)
Abstract:
Near-IR (NIR) region of the synchrotron-IR beam, which is usually filtered out in order to improve the signal to noise ratio of Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), was extracted and used as an illuminating source to achieve phase imaging of biochemical samples. A 200-um pinhole was aligned with one lobe of the unique fork shaped NIR synchrotron beam at a resulting intensity maximum. The diffracted light with airy diffraction pattern passed the biochemical sample and was collected by NIR sensitive lensless camera. The Gerchberg-Saxton algorithm (GSA) was used to reconstruct the phase images of the samples from recorded the intensity images.
Keywords: phase imaging, bioimaging, synchrotron, near infrared beam, holography, incoherent optics, chemical imaging, phase retrieval, 3D imaging
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My brother was in a house at the end of a dirt road, a house that was smaller than the one we’d grown up in, a house that was full of light and dust and the quiet of a man who’d been waiting for something to end. He was thinner than I remembered, older than he should have looked, but he was the same, the same smile, the same eyes, the same brother who’d left when he was eighteen and was sorry and was waiting for me to find him. He didn’t say anything when I walked in. He just looked at me, the way you look at someone when you’ve been waiting for them for fifteen years, and then he said, “You put a pin in the map.” I told him I did. I told him I drove three days to put a pin in a place called Magdalena, a place I’d never been, a place that was on the map now, a place that was in my life. He smiled, the way he’d smiled when we were kids, and he said, “It’s about time.”
I stayed in Magdalena for a week. We sat on the porch, the way we’d sat on the porch when we were kids, and we talked about the things we’d never talked about, the years we’d lost, the places we’d been, the places we hadn’t. He told me about the roads he’d taken, the towns he’d seen, the people he’d met. He told me about the things he’d been looking for, the things he’d found, the things he’d lost. He told me about the letter he’d written, the one in the drawer, the one he’d been waiting for me to answer. I told him about the house, the town, the life I’d built because someone had to stay. I told him about the map on the wall, the pushpins, the places I’d never been, the roads I’d never taken. I told him about the night I got his letter, the night I sat in the room where we’d grown up and looked at the map and thought about the fifteen years I’d spent waiting for something to happen. He listened, the way you listen when you’ve been gone for fifteen years and you’re trying to understand what you missed, and when I finished, he said, “You’re not staying, are you?” I told him I wasn’t. I told him I had to go back, that someone had to stay, that the house was waiting for me, that the map was waiting for me to put more pins in it. He nodded, the way you nod when you understand something you don’t want to understand, and he said, “Then put a pin in this place. Put a pin in Magdalena. Put a pin in the place where you found me.”
I drove back the way I’d come, through the states I’d seen, on the roads I’d taken, past the towns that were on the map now, that were in my life. I drove for three days, the way you drive when you’re going somewhere you’ve been before, when you know the way, when you’re not lost anymore. I got home on a Sunday, the day after I’d left, the day I’d been gone for a week, the day I’d put a pin in a place called Magdalena. I went into the room where we’d grown up, the room with the map on the wall, the pushpins marking the places my brother had been, the places I’d never been, the places that were waiting for me to put a pin in them. I took a pin, the same kind of pin he’d used, the kind that had been in the drawer for thirty years, and I put it in the map. I put it in a place called Magdalena. I put it in the place where I found my brother, the place where I found the road I’d never taken, the place where I found something I didn’t know I was looking for.
That night, after I put the pin in the map, after I sat in the room where we’d grown up, after I looked at the map and saw the places I’d been and the places I hadn’t, I did something I’d never done before. I opened my laptop, the same laptop I used to check the weather and pay the bills and do the things that were safe and predictable and nothing like the thing I’d just done, and I searched for something I’d never searched for. I’d never gambled. Not once. I’d spent my life being careful, being safe, being the one who stayed. I didn’t believe in chance. I believed in the things I could control, the things I could predict, the things I could hold in my hands. But that night, sitting in the room where we’d grown up, with the map on the wall and the pin in Magdalena and the road I’d finally taken, I wanted to do something I couldn’t control. I wanted to do something that wasn’t safe. I wanted to put something on the line and see what happened.
I found a site that looked legitimate. I went to log in to your Vavada account, which I’d created weeks ago but never used, and I sat there for a long time, my hands on the keyboard, thinking about my brother, thinking about the map, thinking about the fifteen years I’d spent waiting for something to happen. I deposited fifty dollars, which was nothing compared to what I’d lost, everything compared to the man I’d been. I started with slots, because slots didn’t require me to think, didn’t require me to pretend I was in control. I lost ten dollars, lost another ten, lost another. I was down to twenty dollars in about ten minutes, and I was about to close the laptop when I saw a game I hadn’t noticed before. A slot machine with a road trip theme, maps and highways and a little car that drove across the screen. I stared at it for a long time, the little graphic of the map, the roads, the places I’d never been, the places I’d finally gone. I thought about my brother. I thought about Magdalena. I thought about the pin I’d put in the map, the road I’d finally taken.
I put twenty dollars in the road trip slot. I watched the reels spin, watched the car drive, watched the map unfold, and I didn’t care if I won or lost. I was there, in that moment, in the room where we’d grown up, with the map on the wall and the pin in Magdalena and the road I’d finally taken, doing something I’d never done before, something that was just for me, something I hadn’t asked anyone’s permission to do. The reels stopped. The screen flashed. And then the map filled with light, and the balance on my screen started climbing. Free spins. Multipliers. A number that went up and up and didn’t stop. When it finally did, I was sitting at my desk with my laptop open, staring at a balance of just over seven thousand dollars.
I didn’t move. I didn’t breathe. I sat there for a long time, and then I withdrew the money, all of it, and I closed the laptop and looked at the map on the wall, the map with the pushpins, the map that was waiting for more pins, more roads, more places I hadn’t been. I used the money to travel. I used it to put pins in the map, to go to the places my brother had been, to see the roads he’d seen, to find the things he’d found. I went to the places he’d written about in the letters that stopped coming, the places he’d told me about when I was in Magdalena, the places that were on the map but not in my life. I went to the mountains, the deserts, the towns that were smaller than the one I’d left, the towns that were waiting for someone to find them. I went to the places I’d been looking at my whole life, the places I’d never been, the places that were waiting for me to put a pin in them.
I still have the account. I still play, sometimes, on nights when I’m sitting in the room where we grew up, the map on the wall, the pushpins marking the places I’ve been, the places I haven’t, the places I’ll go. I log in to my Vavada account and I play a few spins, a few hands, a few minutes of letting go. I don’t play to win. I play to remember that night, the night I lost forty dollars and found a road I’d never taken. I play to remind myself that the places we go aren’t the only places we can go, that the roads we take aren’t the only roads, that the man who stayed can learn, even now, to leave. My brother died last year. He died in Magdalena, the town he’d found, the town he’d been looking for, the town where he was waiting for me to find him. I went back for the funeral, the way you go back when someone you love is gone, the way you go back to the place where you found them, the way you go back to put a pin in the map one last time. I stood on the porch of the house at the end of the dirt road, the house where he’d lived, the house where he’d died, the house that was waiting for someone to come back. I looked at the mountains, the desert, the sky that was bigger than any sky I’d ever seen, and I thought about the brother who left, who was sorry, who was waiting for me to find him. I thought about the map on the wall, the pushpins, the roads I’d taken, the roads I hadn’t. I thought about the night I put a pin in Magdalena, the night I drove three days to find someone I’d lost, the night I found him. I put a pin in the map that night. I put a pin in the place where my brother died, the place where he lived, the place where I found him. I put a pin in the map, and I said the words I’d been waiting thirty years to say. I said, “I found you.”
My brother came back once, when our mother was dying. He stayed for three days, long enough to say goodbye, long enough to stand in the room where we’d grown up, the room with the map still on the wall, the pushpins still marking the places he’d been, the places he hadn’t, the places he’d never make it to. He looked at the map the way he’d looked at it when we were kids, the way you look at something that’s been waiting for you, and he said something I’ve thought about every day since. He said, “You never put any pins in the map.” I told him I didn’t need to. I told him I was where I wanted to be. He looked at me, the way you look at someone when you know something they don’t want to admit, and then he left. He left the way he’d left when he was eighteen, a backpack and a bus ticket and a promise to write that he didn’t keep. I didn’t hear from him again for fifteen years.
I was fifty-two when the letter came. It was in an envelope with a postmark I didn’t recognize, a town in a state I’d never been to, a place that wasn’t on the map on my wall because the map was old and the town was new and the places my brother had been were places I’d never know. The letter was short, the way letters are when you haven’t written one in fifteen years and you don’t know what to say. He was sick, he said. He didn’t say with what, didn’t say how long, didn’t say what he wanted from me. He just said he was sorry. He said he was sorry for leaving, sorry for not writing, sorry for not being there when our mother died, sorry for the fifteen years he’d been gone. He said he was in a town called Magdalena, in New Mexico, a place he’d found when he was looking for something he didn’t know he needed. He said he was staying, that he wasn’t going anywhere, that if I wanted to find him, I could.
I sat in the room where we’d grown up, the room with the map on the wall, the pushpins marking the places he’d been, the places I’d never been, the places that were on the map but not in my life. I looked at the map the way I’d looked at it when we were kids, the way you look at something that’s been waiting for you, and I thought about the fifteen years I’d spent in this town, in this house, in the life I’d built because someone had to stay. I thought about the pins I’d never put in the map, the places I’d never gone, the roads I’d never taken. I thought about my brother, the one who left, the one who was sorry, the one who was in a place called Magdalena, waiting for me to find him.
I didn’t go. Not then. I told myself I had things to do, that I couldn’t leave, that someone had to stay. I told myself the same things I’d been telling myself for thirty years, the things that had kept me in this town, in this house, in the life that was safe and predictable and nothing like the life my brother was living. I put the letter in the drawer, the same drawer where I’d put the letters he’d written when we were young, the letters that stopped coming, the letters that were waiting for me to answer. And I didn’t think about it for six months.
I was fifty-three when I finally went. I don’t know what made me do it. Maybe it was the winter, the long nights, the way the house seemed to get bigger when I was alone in it. Maybe it was the map, the pushpins, the places I’d never been, the roads I’d never taken. Maybe it was the letter, the one in the drawer, the one that said he was sorry, that said he was waiting, that said he was in a place called Magdalena. I packed a bag, the way he’d packed a bag when he was eighteen, the way you pack when you’re going somewhere you’ve never been. I locked the house, the house where we’d grown up, the house I’d never left, the house that was waiting for me to come back. And I drove. I drove for three days, through states I’d never seen, on roads I’d only read about, past towns that were on the map but not in my life. I drove until I got to a place called Magdalena, a town in New Mexico that was smaller than the town I’d left, a town that looked like it was waiting for something, a town that was waiting for me to find it.
My brother was in a house at the end of a dirt road, a house that was smaller than the one we’d grown up in, a house that was full of light and dust and the quiet of a man who’d been waiting for something to end. He was thinner than I remembered, older than he should have looked, but he was the same, the same smile, the same eyes, the same brother who’d left when he was eighteen and was sorry and was waiting for me to find him. He didn’t say anything when I walked in. He just looked at me, the way you look at someone when you’ve been waiting for them for fifteen years, and then he said, “You put a pin in the map.” I told him I did. I told him I drove three days to put a pin in a place called Magdalena, a place I’d never been, a place that was on the map now, a place that was in my life. He smiled, the way he’d smiled when we were kids, and he said, “It’s about time.”
I stayed in Magdalena for a week. We sat on the porch, the way we’d sat on the porch when we were kids, and we talked about the things we’d never talked about, the years we’d lost, the places we’d been, the places we hadn’t. He told me about the roads he’d taken, the towns he’d seen, the people he’d met. He told me about the things he’d been looking for, the things he’d found, the things he’d lost. He told me about the letter he’d written, the one in the drawer, the one he’d been waiting for me to answer. I told him about the house, the town, the life I’d built because someone had to stay. I told him about the map on the wall, the pushpins, the places I’d never been, the roads I’d never taken. I told him about the night I got his letter, the night I sat in the room where we’d grown up and looked at the map and thought about the fifteen years I’d spent waiting for something to happen. He listened, the way you listen when you’ve been gone for fifteen years and you’re trying to understand what you missed, and when I finished, he said, “You’re not staying, are you?” I told him I wasn’t. I told him I had to go back, that someone had to stay, that the house was waiting for me, that the map was waiting for me to put more pins in it. He nodded, the way you nod when you understand something you don’t want to understand, and he said, “Then put a pin in this place. Put a pin in Magdalena. Put a pin in the place where you found me.”
I drove back the way I’d come, through the states I’d seen, on the roads I’d taken, past the towns that were on the map now, that were in my life. I drove for three days, the way you drive when you’re going somewhere you’ve been before, when you know the way, when you’re not lost anymore. I got home on a Sunday, the day after I’d left, the day I’d been gone for a week, the day I’d put a pin in a place called Magdalena. I went into the room where we’d grown up, the room with the map on the wall, the pushpins marking the places my brother had been, the places I’d never been, the places that were waiting for me to put a pin in them. I took a pin, the same kind of pin he’d used, the kind that had been in the drawer for thirty years, and I put it in the map. I put it in a place called Magdalena. I put it in the place where I found my brother, the place where I found the road I’d never taken, the place where I found something I didn’t know I was looking for.
That night, after I put the pin in the map, after I sat in the room where we’d grown up, after I looked at the map and saw the places I’d been and the places I hadn’t, I did something I’d never done before. I opened my laptop, the same laptop I used to check the weather and pay the bills and do the things that were safe and predictable and nothing like the thing I’d just done, and I searched for something I’d never searched for. I’d never gambled. Not once. I’d spent my life being careful, being safe, being the one who stayed. I didn’t believe in chance. I believed in the things I could control, the things I could predict, the things I could hold in my hands. But that night, sitting in the room where we’d grown up, with the map on the wall and the pin in Magdalena and the road I’d finally taken, I wanted to do something I couldn’t control. I wanted to do something that wasn’t safe. I wanted to put something on the line and see what happened.
I found a site that looked legitimate. I went to log in to your Vavada account, which I’d created weeks ago but never used, and I sat there for a long time, my hands on the keyboard, thinking about my brother, thinking about the map, thinking about the fifteen years I’d spent waiting for something to happen. I deposited fifty dollars, which was nothing compared to what I’d lost, everything compared to the man I’d been. I started with slots, because slots didn’t require me to think, didn’t require me to pretend I was in control. I lost ten dollars, lost another ten, lost another. I was down to twenty dollars in about ten minutes, and I was about to close the laptop when I saw a game I hadn’t noticed before. A slot machine with a road trip theme, maps and highways and a little car that drove across the screen. I stared at it for a long time, the little graphic of the map, the roads, the places I’d never been, the places I’d finally gone. I thought about my brother. I thought about Magdalena. I thought about the pin I’d put in the map, the road I’d finally taken.
I put twenty dollars in the road trip slot. I watched the reels spin, watched the car drive, watched the map unfold, and I didn’t care if I won or lost. I was there, in that moment, in the room where we’d grown up, with the map on the wall and the pin in Magdalena and the road I’d finally taken, doing something I’d never done before, something that was just for me, something I hadn’t asked anyone’s permission to do. The reels stopped. The screen flashed. And then the map filled with light, and the balance on my screen started climbing. Free spins. Multipliers. A number that went up and up and didn’t stop. When it finally did, I was sitting at my desk with my laptop open, staring at a balance of just over seven thousand dollars.
I didn’t move. I didn’t breathe. I sat there for a long time, and then I withdrew the money, all of it, and I closed the laptop and looked at the map on the wall, the map with the pushpins, the map that was waiting for more pins, more roads, more places I hadn’t been. I used the money to travel. I used it to put pins in the map, to go to the places my brother had been, to see the roads he’d seen, to find the things he’d found. I went to the places he’d written about in the letters that stopped coming, the places he’d told me about when I was in Magdalena, the places that were on the map but not in my life. I went to the mountains, the deserts, the towns that were smaller than the one I’d left, the towns that were waiting for someone to find them. I went to the places I’d been looking at my whole life, the places I’d never been, the places that were waiting for me to put a pin in them.
I still have the account. I still play, sometimes, on nights when I’m sitting in the room where we grew up, the map on the wall, the pushpins marking the places I’ve been, the places I haven’t, the places I’ll go. I log in to my Vavada account and I play a few spins, a few hands, a few minutes of letting go. I don’t play to win. I play to remember that night, the night I lost forty dollars and found a road I’d never taken. I play to remind myself that the places we go aren’t the only places we can go, that the roads we take aren’t the only roads, that the man who stayed can learn, even now, to leave. My brother died last year. He died in Magdalena, the town he’d found, the town he’d been looking for, the town where he was waiting for me to find him. I went back for the funeral, the way you go back when someone you love is gone, the way you go back to the place where you found them, the way you go back to put a pin in the map one last time. I stood on the porch of the house at the end of the dirt road, the house where he’d lived, the house where he’d died, the house that was waiting for someone to come back. I looked at the mountains, the desert, the sky that was bigger than any sky I’d ever seen, and I thought about the brother who left, who was sorry, who was waiting for me to find him. I thought about the map on the wall, the pushpins, the roads I’d taken, the roads I hadn’t. I thought about the night I put a pin in Magdalena, the night I drove three days to find someone I’d lost, the night I found him. I put a pin in the map that night. I put a pin in the place where my brother died, the place where he lived, the place where I found him. I put a pin in the map, and I said the words I’d been waiting thirty years to say. I said, “I found you.”
