Article abstract


Nature Physics 3, 129 - 134 (2007)
doi:10.1038/nphys514

Subject Categories: Optical physics | Techniques and instrumentation

Interferometric synthetic aperture microscopy

Tyler S. Ralston1,2, Daniel L. Marks1,2, P. Scott Carney1,2 and Stephen A. Boppart1,2,3


State-of-the-art methods in high-resolution three-dimensional optical microscopy require that the focus be scanned through the entire region of interest. However, an analysis of the physics of the light–sample interaction reveals that the Fourier-space coverage is independent of depth. Here we show that, by solving the inverse scattering problem for interference microscopy, computed reconstruction yields volumes with a resolution in all planes that is equivalent to the resolution achieved only at the focal plane for conventional high-resolution microscopy. In short, the entire illuminated volume has spatially invariant resolution, thus eliminating the compromise between resolution and depth of field. We describe and demonstrate a novel computational image-formation technique called interferometric synthetic aperture microscopy (ISAM). ISAM has the potential to broadly impact real-time three-dimensional microscopy and analysis in the fields of cell and tumour biology, as well as in clinical diagnosis where in vivo imaging is preferable to biopsy.

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  1. Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 405 N. Mathews Avenue, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA
  2. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 405 N. Mathews Avenue, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA
  3. Departments of Bioengineering, Internal Medicine, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 405 N. Mathews Avenue, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA

Correspondence to: Stephen A. Boppart1,2,3 e-mail: boppart@uiuc.edu

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