High-throughput intensity diffraction tomography with a computational microscope.

Area of Science:

• Microscopy
• Optical Imaging
• Computational Imaging

Background:

• Traditional microscopy often requires sample labeling or complex setups.
• Quantitative phase and absorption imaging provide rich information about sample properties.
• Existing diffraction tomography methods can be limited by motion artifacts or computational complexity.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a motion-free intensity diffraction tomography (IDT) technique.
• To enable direct 3D phase and absorption inversion from intensity-only measurements.
• To create a versatile computational microscopy system for biological imaging.

Main Methods:

• Derivation of a novel linear forward model with slice-wise phase and absorption transfer functions.
• Implementation of angled illumination for flexible data acquisition.
• Utilization of 3D synthetic aperture and slice-wise deconvolution for image reconstruction.
• Evaluation using thick biological samples and resolution targets.

Main Results:

• Demonstrated motion-free 3D phase and absorption imaging of weakly scattering samples.
• Achieved resolution up to the incoherent limit.
• Successfully imaged biological samples with diverse structures, including dense cell clusters.
• Investigated and evaluated performance with strongly scattering samples and multiple scattering effects.

Conclusions:

• The developed IDT technique offers direct 3D quantitative phase and absorption imaging.
• The system is built upon standard commercial microscopes with minimal hardware additions.
• This approach promises broad applications in biological and materials science due to its accessibility and performance.