Single-beam driven rotational manipulation for high-resolution 3D cellular morphology reconstruction

TL;DR

This paper introduces a single-beam optical method for stable, flexible, and simplified 3D cellular morphology reconstruction by rotating cells using spin angular momentum, enabling detailed multi-view imaging.

Contribution

It presents a novel single-beam SAM-based rotation technique that improves stability and flexibility while simplifying the experimental setup for 3D cell imaging.

Findings

Successful 3D reconstruction of pollen and plant cells

Enhanced stability and flexibility in cell rotation

Simplified optical setup for multi-view imaging

Abstract

The acquisition of multi-view information of cells is essential for accurate 3D reconstruction of their structures. Rotational manipulation of cells has emerged as an effective technique for obtaining such data. However, most reported methods require a trade-off between manipulation flexibility and system complexity These limitations significantly hinder their practical applicability. Recently, a novel approach has been proposed that enables simultaneous trapping and arbitrary-angle rotation of cells using a single optical beam carrying spin angular momentum (SAM). This method offers improved stability and manipulation flexibility, a simplified experimental setup, and supports coaxial alignment of the imaging and optical paths. In this paper, we employed this method to rotate cells and acquire multi-view images. Furthermore, we present a complete 3D reconstruction workflow, and validate the performance of the proposed method through the reconstruction of Punica granatum pollen cells and Prunus cerasifera cells. Our methods pave the way for 3D reconstruction of microscopic biological specimens, including but not limited to cells.