Tensorial tomographic differential phase-contrast microscopy
This work addresses the need for quantitative, label-free imaging of anisotropic samples in microscopy, particularly for biological applications, representing a novel extension rather than an incremental improvement.
The authors tackled the problem of simultaneously measuring phase and anisotropy in label-free tomographic imaging by developing Tensorial Tomographic Differential Phase-Contrast microscopy (T2DPC), which extends differential phase-contrast microscopy to capture vectorial light properties, resulting in accurate volumetric reconstructions of refractive index, birefringence, and orientation, including predictive polarization structures for pathology in biological specimens.
We report Tensorial Tomographic Differential Phase-Contrast microscopy (T2DPC), a quantitative label-free tomographic imaging method for simultaneous measurement of phase and anisotropy. T2DPC extends differential phase-contrast microscopy, a quantitative phase imaging technique, to highlight the vectorial nature of light. The method solves for permittivity tensor of anisotropic samples from intensity measurements acquired with a standard microscope equipped with an LED matrix, a circular polarizer, and a polarization-sensitive camera. We demonstrate accurate volumetric reconstructions of refractive index, birefringence, and orientation for various validation samples, and show that the reconstructed polarization structures of a biological specimen are predictive of pathology.