Adv. Photon. 1, 016002 (2019)

A light-sheet microscopy system that is capable of imaging a volume of 100 mm3 with a spatial resolution of 1.6 μm has been built by scientists from China, USA and Japan. The capabilities of their scheme, called subvoxel light-sheet microscopy (SLSM), are demonstrated with the imaging of a variety of samples, including fluorescent beads, 3D cultured cells, a mouse heart and brain, and a zebrafish embryo with cellular resolution. The approach operates by capturing a stack of low-resolution, shift-modulated images that are then processed by a reconstruction algorithm to create a high-resolution output image of the sample. A benefit of the approach is that it removes the need for any mechanical stitching to create a large field of view. Advances in computer power, notably graphics processing units (GPUs), allow the system to operate with acquisition speeds of gigavoxels per minute.