Optical sectioning partially coherent sparse structured illumination microscopy (OS-pcsSIM)

Optical sectioning structured illumination microscopy (OS-SIM) is a rapid 3D microscopic imaging approach. Yet, the fringe visibility of OS-SIM images degrades when imaging a thick sample due to the low fringe visibility of dense fringes used. To tackle this problem, herein we propose optical sectioning partially coherent sparse structured illumination microscopy (OS-pcsSIM), thereby effectively enhancing the SBR and imaging depth. This approach utilizes partially coherent sparse fringes to illuminate a sample, achieving a 1.6-fold improvement in imaging depth compared to conventional OS-SIM. The robustness of the technique was further validated with 3D imaging of Cos7 cells and non-fluorescent Chinese coins.