Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 13, 2026

Scanning Transmission Electron Microscopy Tomography in Virology: 3D Imaging of High-pressure Frozen, Freeze-substituted Samples
Published on: August 6, 2025
Tomographic phase microscopy
Wonshik Choi1, Christopher Fang-Yen, Kamran Badizadegan
1G.R. Harrison Spectroscopy Laboratory, 77 Massachusetts Avenue 6-014, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA.
Abstract:
We report a technique for quantitative three-dimensional (3D) mapping of refractive index in live cells and tissues using a phase-shifting laser interferometric microscope with variable illumination angle. We demonstrate tomographic imaging of cells and multicellular organisms, and time-dependent changes in cell structure. Our results will permit quantitative characterization of specimen-induced aberrations in high-resolution microscopy and have multiple applications in tissue light scattering.
Related Concept Videos
Phase Contrast and Differential Interference Contrast Microscopy
In-phase-contrast microscopes, interference between light directly passing through a cell and light refracted by cellular components is used to create high-contrast, high-resolution images without staining. It is the oldest and simplest type of microscope that creates an image by altering the wavelengths of light rays passing through the specimen. Altered wavelength paths are created using an annular stop in the condenser. The annular stop produces a hollow cone of...
Electron Microscope Tomography and Single-particle Reconstruction
Electron Tomography
Electron tomography can be performed either in TEM or STEM (scanning transmission...
Two-Dimensional Microscopy in Microbiology
Three-Dimensional Microscopy in Microbiology
Computed Tomography
The technique was invented in the 1970s and is based on the principle that as X-rays pass through the body, they are absorbed or reflected at different levels. In the technique, a patient lies on a motorized platform while a computerized axial tomography (CAT) scanner rotates...

