Low-coherence optical diffraction tomography using a ferroelectric liquid crystal spatial light modulator

TL;DR

This paper presents a novel low-coherence optical diffraction tomography method utilizing a ferroelectric liquid crystal spatial light modulator to achieve high-resolution, low-noise 3D imaging of biological samples.

Contribution

It introduces a temporally low-coherence ODT technique with a ferroelectric liquid crystal SLM, enhancing resolution and reducing noise compared to existing methods.

Findings

High spatiotemporal resolution achieved

Reduced coherent noise demonstrated

Effective imaging of biological samples

Abstract

Optical diffraction tomography (ODT) is a three-dimensional (3D) label-free imaging technique. The 3D refractive index distribution of a sample can be reconstructed from multiple two-dimensional optical field images via ODT. Herein, we introduce a temporally low-coherence ODT technique using a ferroelectric liquid crystal spatial light modulator (FLC SLM). The fast binary-phase modulation provided by the FLC SLM ensures a high spatiotemporal resolution with considerably reduced coherent noise. We demonstrate the performance of the proposed system using various samples, including colloidal microspheres and live epithelial cells.