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

## TL;DR

This paper introduces a cost-effective method to generate interference patterns for structured illumination microscopy using a single galvanometric mirror, enabling high-speed 2D and 3D imaging.

## Contribution

A novel, single-mirror approach for generating interference patterns in SIM with high speed and power efficiency.

## Key findings

- The method achieves high-speed 2D SIM imaging at 980 raw frames per second.
- The technique is demonstrated on fluorescent nanoparticles and 3D imaging of U-2 OS cells.
- The interference patterns show high contrast and fast switching speed.

## 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.