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arXiv · 1708.02612

Light-sheet microscopy with attenuation-compensated propagation-invariant beams

Jonathan Nylk·Kaley McCluskey·Miguel A. Preciado·Michael Mazilu·Frank J. Gunn-Moore·Sanya Aggarwal·Javier A. Tello·David E. K. Ferrier·Kishan Dholakia
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Abstract

Scattering and absorption limit the penetration of optical fields into tissue, but wavefront correction, often used to compensate for these effects, is incompatible with wide field-of-view imaging and complex to implement. We demonstrate a new approach for increased penetration in light-sheet imaging, namely attenuation-compensation of the light field. This tailors an exponential intensity increase along the illuminating propagation-invariant field, enabling the redistribution of intensity strategically within a sample. This powerful yet straightforward concept, combined with the self-healing of the propagation-invariant field, improves the signal-to-background ratio of Airy light-sheet microscopy up to five-fold and the contrast-to-noise ratio up to eight-fold in thick biological specimens across the field-of-view without any aberration-correction. This improvement is not limited to Airy beam light-sheet microscopy, but can also significantly increase the imaging capabilities of Bessel and lattice light-sheet microscopy techniques, paving the way for widespread uptake by the biomedical community.

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Jonathan Nylk, Kaley McCluskey, Miguel A. Preciado, Michael Mazilu, Frank J. Gunn-Moore, Sanya Aggarwal, Javier A. Tello, David E. K. Ferrier, Kishan Dholakia. 2017-08-08. Light-sheet microscopy with attenuation-compensated propagation-invariant beams. https://arxiv.org/abs/1708.02612

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