Work

Synthesis of Arbitrary Interference Patterns Using a Single Galvanometric Mirror and Its Application to Structured Illumination Microscopy

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: Structured illumination microscopy (SIM) overcomes the diffraction limit of optical microscopy by projecting finely spaced interference fringes with different orientations and phases onto the sample and imaging the result. A major challenge of SIM is to generate the different illumination patterns with a high contrast and switching speed, which commonly requires expensive devices and the sacrifice of illumination power efficiency. We present a new way of generating interference patterns for 2D and 3D SIM achromatically, with high speed and high power efficiency, using only one moving part. The interference patterns are created by a common-path interferometer, with the orientation, polarization, and phase of interference patterns controlled by a single galvanometric mirror. We characterize the contrast and switching speed of the interference patterns and demonstrate their utility by performing high-speed (980 raw frames per second) 2D SIM imaging on fluorescent nanoparticles and 3D SIM on fixed iFluor 488 phalloidin-stained U-2 OS cells.

Source: ACS Photonics

DOI: 10.1021/acsphotonics.5c00516

Authors: Ke Guo, Abderrahim Boualam, James D. Manton, Christopher J. Rowlands

Institutions: Imperial College London, MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology

Language: English

Topic: Advanced Fluorescence Microscopy Techniques

Subfield: Biophysics

Field: Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology

Domain: Life Sciences

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $4,500