Quantitative phase microscopy incorporates a family of techniques for measuring the phase front of a light field after transmission through an object. One particular quantitative phase microscopy technique utilizes a differential interference contrast microscope to measure phase gradients in two perpendicular directions. The phase front is then calculated from these two noisy gradient measurements by application of the spiral phase integration algorithm. Here, we present discrete Laplacian deconvolution (DLD), a new algorithm for the reconstruction of the phase front from multiple phase gradient measurements. Unlike spiral phase integration, DLD can make use of an arbitrary number of two or more gradient measurements. In this work, a spatial light modulator was used to enable fast, accurate acquisition of phase gradient measurements in many directions. In both simulated and experimental data, we show that the use of more gradient measurements leads to more accurate phase front reconstructions. We also demonstrate quantitative phase imaging on biological samples.
