Phase tomography with axial structured illumination

Holographic tomography (HT) or optical diffraction tomography provides slice-by-slice information about the refractive index (RI) of three-dimensional (3D) samples and is emerging as an important label-free imaging modality for life sciences. HT systems go beyond digital holographic microscopes (DHM...

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Main Authors: Nishant Goyal, Kedar Khare
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: IOP Publishing 2025-01-01
Series:JPhys Photonics
Subjects:
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1088/2515-7647/ade107
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author Nishant Goyal
Kedar Khare
author_facet Nishant Goyal
Kedar Khare
author_sort Nishant Goyal
collection DOAJ
description Holographic tomography (HT) or optical diffraction tomography provides slice-by-slice information about the refractive index (RI) of three-dimensional (3D) samples and is emerging as an important label-free imaging modality for life sciences. HT systems go beyond digital holographic microscopes (DHM) that provide a two-dimensional representation of the total accumulated phase acquired by a plane beam on transmission through a 3D sample. While the early HT systems used a direct reconstruction methodology based on the Fourier diffraction theorem, in recent years, there is an increasing shift towards iterative optimization frameworks for solving the 3D RI reconstruction problem. Iterative frameworks naturally offer several advantages for addressing the data incompleteness issues (e.g. missing illumination angles) and have superior noise handling capability, since they employ suitable constraint functions. Despite this algorithmic framework shift, the HT system hardware still largely uses the multi-angle illumination geometries that were suitable for reconstructions based on the Fourier diffraction theorem. The present work examines the possibility of HT reconstruction through the use of on-axis structured illumination(s) that are nominally incident on the 3D sample only along the direction of the optical axis of the system. Through a simulation study, it is shown that a cross-talk free slice-by-slice 3D RI reconstruction of the sample is possible in this case via the use of sparsity penalties if the slice-to-slice distance obeys a design curve based on the notion of effective depth of focus. The simulation results for two-, three- and four-slice 3D objects with laterally overlapping features clearly outline the separate roles played by the slice-to-slice de-correlation of the field propagating through the 3D sample (modeled via multi-slice beam propagation) and that of the sparsity penalty used to guide the iterative solution. Our results suggest the possibility of realizing an axial structured illumination tomography (ASIT) system configuration that avoids the use of hardware-intensive multi-angle illumination geometry. An ASIT system can, for example, be realized by minimal modification of a traditional DHM system.
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spelling doaj-art-9e089c052dcd49779cfebf4080f1c3fe2025-08-20T03:21:16ZengIOP PublishingJPhys Photonics2515-76472025-01-017303501210.1088/2515-7647/ade107Phase tomography with axial structured illuminationNishant Goyal0https://orcid.org/0009-0007-4126-3455Kedar Khare1https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3104-3850Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi , New Delhi 110016, IndiaDepartment of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi , New Delhi 110016, India; Optics and Photonics Centre, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi , New Delhi 110016, IndiaHolographic tomography (HT) or optical diffraction tomography provides slice-by-slice information about the refractive index (RI) of three-dimensional (3D) samples and is emerging as an important label-free imaging modality for life sciences. HT systems go beyond digital holographic microscopes (DHM) that provide a two-dimensional representation of the total accumulated phase acquired by a plane beam on transmission through a 3D sample. While the early HT systems used a direct reconstruction methodology based on the Fourier diffraction theorem, in recent years, there is an increasing shift towards iterative optimization frameworks for solving the 3D RI reconstruction problem. Iterative frameworks naturally offer several advantages for addressing the data incompleteness issues (e.g. missing illumination angles) and have superior noise handling capability, since they employ suitable constraint functions. Despite this algorithmic framework shift, the HT system hardware still largely uses the multi-angle illumination geometries that were suitable for reconstructions based on the Fourier diffraction theorem. The present work examines the possibility of HT reconstruction through the use of on-axis structured illumination(s) that are nominally incident on the 3D sample only along the direction of the optical axis of the system. Through a simulation study, it is shown that a cross-talk free slice-by-slice 3D RI reconstruction of the sample is possible in this case via the use of sparsity penalties if the slice-to-slice distance obeys a design curve based on the notion of effective depth of focus. The simulation results for two-, three- and four-slice 3D objects with laterally overlapping features clearly outline the separate roles played by the slice-to-slice de-correlation of the field propagating through the 3D sample (modeled via multi-slice beam propagation) and that of the sparsity penalty used to guide the iterative solution. Our results suggest the possibility of realizing an axial structured illumination tomography (ASIT) system configuration that avoids the use of hardware-intensive multi-angle illumination geometry. An ASIT system can, for example, be realized by minimal modification of a traditional DHM system.https://doi.org/10.1088/2515-7647/ade107optical diffraction tomographyphase tomographyholographic tomographystructured illuminationiterative image reconstruction
spellingShingle Nishant Goyal
Kedar Khare
Phase tomography with axial structured illumination
JPhys Photonics
optical diffraction tomography
phase tomography
holographic tomography
structured illumination
iterative image reconstruction
title Phase tomography with axial structured illumination
title_full Phase tomography with axial structured illumination
title_fullStr Phase tomography with axial structured illumination
title_full_unstemmed Phase tomography with axial structured illumination
title_short Phase tomography with axial structured illumination
title_sort phase tomography with axial structured illumination
topic optical diffraction tomography
phase tomography
holographic tomography
structured illumination
iterative image reconstruction
url https://doi.org/10.1088/2515-7647/ade107
work_keys_str_mv AT nishantgoyal phasetomographywithaxialstructuredillumination
AT kedarkhare phasetomographywithaxialstructuredillumination