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Metasurface-based bijective illumination collection imaging provides high-resolution tomography in three dimensions

Nature Photonics volume 16, pages 203–211 (2022)Cite this article

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Abstract

Microscopic imaging in three dimensions enables numerous biological and clinical applications. However, high-resolution optical imaging preserved in a relatively large depth range is hampered by the rapid spread of tightly confined light due to diffraction. Here, we show that a particular disposition of light illumination and collection paths liberates optical imaging from the restrictions imposed by diffraction. This arrangement, realized by metasurfaces, decouples lateral resolution from the depth of focus by establishing a one-to-one correspondence (bijection) along a focal line between the incident and collected light. Implementing this approach in optical coherence tomography, we demonstrate tissue imaging at a wavelength of 1.3 µm with ~3.2 µm lateral resolution, maintained nearly intact over a 1.25 mm depth of focus, with no additional acquisition or computational burden. This method, termed bijective illumination collection imaging, is general and might be adapted across various existing imaging modalities.

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Fig. 1: BICI concept.
Fig. 2: Analytic PSF comparison of BICI with approaches using common path Gaussian and Bessel beams.
Fig. 3: BICI implementation.
Fig. 4: Characterization of the BICI PSF.
Fig. 5: BICI resolution and depth-of-focus measurement.
Fig. 6: Tissue imaging comparison of BICI and a conventional approach.

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Data availability

All data generated and analysed are included in the paper and its supplementary information. The imaging data presented in Fig. 6 are available at https://figshare.com/articles/figure/Fig_6e_TIF/17124062.

Code availability

All custom codes or algorithms used to generate results that are reported in this manuscript are available from the corresponding authors upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

This project was supported by funding from the Department of Defense under grant no. W81XWH2010300 awarded to H.P., the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada under grant no. 392075 awarded to M. Pahlevani and the National Institutes of Health under grant no. 5R01HL133664 and grant no. 1R01CA255326 awarded to M.J.S. This work was performed in part at Harvard’s Center for Nanoscale Systems (CNS), a member of the National Nanotechnology Coordinated Infrastructure (NNCI), supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under NSF award no. 1541959.

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Author notes

  1. Yao-Wei Huang

    Present address: Department of Photonics, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA

    Masoud Pahlevaninezhad, Brett Bouma, Melissa J. Suter & Hamid Pahlevaninezhad

  2. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada

    Masoud Pahlevaninezhad & Majid Pahlevani

  3. Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada

    Masoud Pahlevaninezhad

  4. Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Yao-Wei Huang, Federico Capasso & Hamid Pahlevaninezhad

  5. Harvard-MIT Health Science and Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Brett Bouma

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Contributions

M. Pahlevaninezhad and H.P. conceived the design and implementation and executed the experiments. M. Pahlevani, M.J.S., B.B. and F.C. refined the methodology. M. Pahlevaninezhad performed computational analyses for metasurface design. M. Pahlevaninezhad and Y.-W.H. fabricated the metasurfaces. H.P., M. Pahlevaninezhad and M.J.S. performed ex vivo imaging and processed the imaging data. M. Pahlevaninezhad and H.P. prepared the original manuscript with contributions from F.C., M. Pahlevani, B.B. and M.J.S. The research was supervised by H.P. and F.C.

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Correspondence to Federico Capasso or Hamid Pahlevaninezhad.

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Pahlevaninezhad, M., Huang, YW., Pahlevani, M. et al. Metasurface-based bijective illumination collection imaging provides high-resolution tomography in three dimensions. Nat. Photon. 16, 203–211 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-022-00956-6

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