Whole-field five-dimensional fluorescence microscopy combining lifetime and spectral resolution with optical sectioning

We report a novel whole-field three-dimensional fluorescence lifetime imaging microscope that incoporates multispectral imaging to provide five-dimensional (5-D) fluorescence microscopy. This instrument, which can acquire a 5-D data set in less than a minute, is based on potentially compact and inexpensive diode-pumped solid-state laser technology. We demonstrate that spectral discrimination as well as optical sectioning minimize artifacts in lifetime determination and illustrate how spectral discrimination improves the lifetime contrast of biological tissue.     

Improved axial resolution in confocal fluorescence microscopy using annular pupils

The axial image of a thick fluorescent layer is studied in a confocal microscope consisting of either circular or annular pupils. The response for circular pupils is sharper than that for annular pupils if a small pinhole detector is used. But when the size of the pinhole is larger than a certain value, the response in the latter case can become sharper than that in the former. This result implies that for a given detector of finite size, axial resolution in confocal fluorescence microscopy can be improved when an annular lens is used. Our experimental results qualitatively demonstrate the theoretical prediction. The strength of optical sectioning and the axial cross-section of the three-dimensional optical transfer function are also derived from the measured data.     

Dynamic sample imaging in coherent diffractive imaging

As the resolution in coherent diffractive imaging improves, interexposure and intraexposure sample dynamics, such as motion, degrade the quality of the reconstructed image. Selecting data sets that include only exposures where tolerably little motion has occurred is an inefficient use of time and flux, especially when detector readout time is significant. We provide an experimental demonstration of an approach in which all images of a data set exhibiting sample motion are combined to improve the quality of a reconstruction. This approach is applicable to more general sample dynamics (including sample damage) that occur during measurement.     

Improved depth resolution in video-rate line-scanning multiphoton microscopy using temporal focusing

By introducing spatiotemporal pulse shaping techniques to multiphoton microscopy it is possible to obtain video-rate images with depth resolution similar to point-by-point scanning multiphoton microscopy while mechanically scanning in only one dimension. This is achieved by temporal focusing of the illumination pulse: The pulsed excitation field is compressed as it propagates through the sample, reaching its shortest duration (and highest peak intensity) at the focal plane before stretching again beyond it. This method is applied to produce, in a simple and scalable setup, video-rate two-photon excitation fluorescence images of Drosophila egg chambers with nearly 100,000 effective pixels and 1.5 microm depth resolution.     

Photolithographic production of glass sample holders for improved sensitivity and resolution in ESR microscopy

Electron spin resonance microscopy (ESRM) is an imaging method aiming at the observation of stable free radicals in small samples with a spatial resolution of about 1 micrometer. One of the challenges associated with the useof ESRM in conjunction with small biological samples (e.g., single cells) is containing these samples in a manner that will minimize the effect on the quality factor of the resonator but yet enable easy handling and simultaneous optical and ESR observation. Here we present a new type of flat samples that provide an adequate answer to this challenge. The samples are made of thin glass coverslips, manufactured by photolithography techniques. Details of the manufacturing process as well as the expected improvements in sensitivity and resolution are provided.     

结构光照明显微中的偏振控制

结构光照明显微(structured illumination microscopy.SIM)作为一种宽场超分辨光学显微成像技术,具有成像速度快、光漂白和光毒性弱等优点,是目前主流超分辨成像方法之一.在SIM技术中,正弦强度分布的条纹结构光场的对比度决定了SIM超分辨图像的质量.低的条纹对比度将导致样品中超衍射极限的高频信息被噪声掩盖,从而无法解析出超分辨信息.结构照明入射光的偏振态调控决定了干涉条纹的对比度,是SIM的关键技术.鉴于此,本文总结对比了几种典型的SIM系统偏振控制方法,同时提出了一种使用零级涡旋半波片的偏振控制方法.实验证明,与其他方法相比,采用零级涡旋半波片法可以获得更高效的偏振控制效果,具有系统结构简单、易使用、可将光能利用率提升到接近100%的优点.     

Influence of the illumination coherency and illumination aperture on the ptychographic iterative microscopy

While ptychography is an algorithm based on coherent illumination,satisfactory reconstructions can still be generated in most experiments,even though the radiation sources that are used are not ideally coherent.The underlying physics of this phenomenon is that the diffraction patterns of partially coherent illumination can be treated as those of purely coherent illumination by altering the intensities of the diffracted beams relative to their real values.On the other hand,due to the inconsistency in the altering interference among all the diffraction beams,noise/distortion is always involved in the reconstructed images.Furthermore,for a weak object,the noise/distortion in the reconstruction can be mostly reduced by using a highly curved beam for illumination in the data recording and forcing the dark field diffraction to be zero in the reconstruction.     

High resolution (NA = 0.8) in lensless in-line holographic microscopy with glass sample carriers

For lensless digital in-line holographic microscopy a new state-of-the-art spatial resolution corresponding to an NA of 0.8 is shown based on the tile superposition propagation. The result is proved using a common glass sample carrier with a refraction index of 1.52. Single-shot high-resolution imaging is possible by suppression of coherent reflections in an optimized arrangement using partially coherent laser light illumination.     

Image formation in structured illumination wide-field fluorescence microscopy

We present a theoretical analysis of the image formation in structured illumination wide-field fluorescence microscopy (SIWFFM). We show that the optically sectioned images obtained with this approach possess the optical sectioning strengths comparable to those obtained with the confocal microscope. We further show that the transfer function behaviour is directly comparable to that of the true confocal instrument. The theoretical considerations are compared with and confirmed by experimental results.     

Theoretical assessment of optical resolution enhancement and background fluorescence reduction by three-dimensional nonlinear structured illumination microscopy using stimulated emission depletion

Three-dimensional structured illumination microscopy (SIM) enlarges frequency cutoff laterally and axially by a factor of two, compared with conventional microscopy. However, its optical resolution is still fundamentally limited. It is necessary to introduce nonlinearity to enlarge frequency cutoff further. We propose three-dimensional nonlinear structured illumination microscopy based on stimulated emission depletion (STED) effect, which has a structured excitation pattern and a structured STED pattern, and both three-dimensional illumination patterns have the same lateral pitch and orientation. Theoretical analysis showed that nonlinearity induced by STED effect, which causes harmonics and contributes to enlarging frequency cutoff, depends on the phase difference between two structured illuminations and that the phase difference of π is the most efficient to increase nonlinearity. We also found that undesirable background fluorescence, which degenerates the contrast of structured pattern and limits the ability of SIM, can be reduced by our method. These results revealed that optical resolution improvement and background fluorescence reduction would be compatible. The feasibility study showed that our method will be realized with commercially available laser, having 3.5 times larger frequency cutoff compared with conventional microscopy.     

结构光照明超分辨光学显微成像技术与展望

结构光照明显微镜(Structured Illumination Microscopy,SIM)通过结构化照明在频率域以空间混频的方式将物体高频信息载入光学系统的探测通带内实现突破衍射极限的超分辨光学显微成像。SIM凭借其较低的激发光强、对荧光染料的非特异性需求以及快速的宽场成像优势已成为活细胞超分辨光学显微成像方面应用最多的技术。本文系统回顾了SIM的技术进展,对SIM的基本原理与实现方法进了详细的分析,重点介绍了本课题组研发的基于光谱分辨的单光子激发超分辨显微镜和结合自适应光学的双光子激发超分辨显微镜这两种最新的SIM技术,最后简要讨论了SIM技术在生物成像中的应用及未来发展方向。     

Enhanced weak-signal sensitivity in two-photon microscopy by adaptive illumination

We describe a technique to enhance both the weak-signal relative sensitivity and the dynamic range of a laser scanning optical microscope. The technique is based on maintaining a fixed detection power by fast feedback control of the illumination power, thereby transferring high measurement resolution to weak signals while virtually eliminating the possibility of image saturation. We analyze and demonstrate the benefits of adaptive illumination in two-photon fluorescence microscopy.     

Miniaturization and defocus correction for objective-coupled planar illumination microscopy

Recently, a light sheet-based technique called objective-coupled planar illumination (OCPI) microscopy [Holekamp et al., Neuron 57, 661 (2008)] was shown to permit low-phototoxicity, high-speed, three-dimensional fluorescence imaging of extended tissue samples. Here, we introduce two major improvements in OCPI microscopy. First, we miniaturize the objective coupler by using a uniaxial gradient-index lens to produce the light sheet. Second, we demonstrate theoretically and experimentally that refractive index mismatch at the fluid/tissue interface causes a significant defocus aberration. By introducing the ability to tune the angle of the light sheet, we show that defocus correction in a miniaturized OCPI microscope leads to a significant improvement in image sharpness deeper into tissue.     

Resolution enhancement in digital holographic microscopy with structured illumination

We present a digital holographic microscope wherein the sample is illuminated by structured light to enable the capture of additional object spatial frequencies. Reconstructed images with increased spatial resolution are obtained by separating and synthesizing bandwidths of different frequency regions in the Fourier domain. The theoretical analysis and experimental results are presented.     

Subwavelength depth resolution in near-field microscopy

A generalized Radon transform is presented that relates, for the case of an evanescent wave that is incident upon a weakly scattering medium, the homogeneous components of the scattered field to the three-dimensional Fourier transform of the dielectric susceptibility. This relationship is used within the context of total internal reflection microscopy to reconstruct the depth structure of the dielectric susceptibility from simulated scattered field data.     

Subdiffraction resolution in far-field fluorescence microscopy

We overcame the resolution limit of scanning far-field fluorescence microscopy by disabling the fluorescence from the outer part of the focal spot. Whereas a near-UV pulse generates a diffraction-limited distribution of excited molecules, a spatially offset pulse quenches the excited molecules from the outer part of the focus through stimulated emission. This results in a subdiffraction-sized effective point-spread function. For a 1.4 aperture and a 388-nm excitation wavelength spatial resolution is increased from 150 +/- 8 nm to 106 +/- 8 nm with a single offset beam. Superior lateral resolution is demonstrated by separation of adjacent Pyridine 2 nanocrystals that are otherwise indiscernible.     

Synthetic aperture microscopy using off-axis illumination and polarization coding

A new method to improve the resolution of optical imaging systems beyond the classical Rayleigh resolution limit is presented. The technique relies on synthetic aperture generation in three stages. The first one (encoding stage) uses an illumination procedure that combines both on-axis and off-axis illumination beams with different polarization states onto the object. After the imaging system, a second stage (decoding stage) allows the recovering of the encoded spatial-frequency object information by means of an interferometric configuration based on the polarization coding carried out in the previous stage. Finally, a third stage (digital post-processing stage) is used to generate a synthetic aperture that is three times larger than the conventional aperture of the imaging system. The whole process allows us to obtain a superresolved image of the object. Experimental implementation of the approach for a commercial microscope objective is presented.     

Selective plane illumination optical and optoacoustic microscopy for postembryonic imaging

Intravital imaging of large specimens is intrinsically challenging for postembryonic studies. Selective plane illumination microscopy (SPIM) has been introduced to volumetrically visualize organisms used in developmental biology and experimental genetics. Ideally suited for imaging transparent samples, SPIM can offer high frame rate imaging with optical microscopy resolutions and low phototoxicity. However, its performance quickly deteriorates when applied to opaque tissues. To overcome this limitation, SPIM optics were merged with optical and optoacoustic (photoacoustic) readouts. The performance of this hybrid imaging system was characterized using various phantoms and by imaging a highly scattering ex vivo juvenile zebrafish. The results revealed the system's enhanced capability over that of conventional SPIM for high‐resolution imaging over extended depths of scattering content. The approach described here may enable future visualization of organisms throughout their entire development, encompassing regimes in which the tissue may become opaque.

     

Full-field and single-shot quantitative phase microscopy using dynamic speckle illumination

We developed an off-axis quantitative phase microscopy that works for a light source with an extremely short spatial coherence length in order to reduce the diffraction noise and enhance the spatial resolution. A dynamic speckle wave whose coherence length is 440 nm was used as an illumination source. To implement an off-axis interferometry for a source of low spatial coherence, a diffraction grating was inserted in the reference beam path. In doing so, an oblique illumination was generated without rotation of the wavefront, which leads to a full-field and single-shot phase recording with improved phase sensitivity of more than a factor of 10 in comparison with coherent illumination. The spatial resolution, both laterally and axially, and the depth selectivity are significantly enhanced due to the wide angular spectrum of the speckle wave. We applied our method to image the dynamics of small intracellular particles in live biological cells. With enhanced phase sensitivity and speed, the proposed method will serve as a useful tool to study the dynamics of biological specimens.     

Digital resolution enhancement in surface plasmon microscopy

The use of photonic crystal and negative refractive index materials is known to improve the resolution of optical microscopy and lithography devices down to the 80 nm level. Here we demonstrate that utilization of well-known digital image recovery techniques allows us to further improve the resolution of optical microscopy down to the 30 nm level. Our microscope is based on a flat dielectric mirror deposited onto an array of nanoholes in thin gold film. This two-dimensional photonic crystal mirror may have either a positive or negative effective refractive index as perceived by surface plasmon polartions in the visible frequency range. The optical images formed by the mirror are enhanced using simple digital filters. PACS 73.20.Mf; 42.70.Qs; 07.60.Pb