Near-infrared lensless holographic microscopy on a visible sensor enables label-free high-throughput imaging in strong scattering

Emilia Wdowiak; Piotr Arcab; Mikolaj Rogalski; Anna Chwastowicz; Pawel Matryba; Malgorzata Lenarcik; Julianna Winnik; Piotr Zdankowski; Maciej Trusiak

arXiv · 2602.14762

Near-infrared lensless holographic microscopy on a visible sensor enables label-free high-throughput imaging in strong scattering

Emilia Wdowiak·Piotr Arcab·Mikolaj Rogalski·Anna Chwastowicz·Pawel Matryba·Malgorzata Lenarcik·Julianna Winnik·Piotr Zdankowski·Maciej Trusiak

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Abstract

Lensless digital holographic microscopy (LDHM) relies on interference between an unscattered reference wave and a weakly scattered object wave - an assumption that rapidly fails in turbid samples under multiple scattering. To overcome this limitation, we present near-infrared LDHM (NIR-LDHM), a in-line holographic platform that operates up to the silicon cutoff (~1100 nm) using a conventional board-level CMOS sensor designed for visible (VIS) imaging. Using tissue-mimicking milk scattering layers and calibrated resolution targets, we quantify reconstruction performance versus wavelength, scattering strength, and sample-sensor distance. NIR-LDHM maintains resolvable features through scattering layers up to ~1.4 mm, whereas visible regime fails to resolve features below ~350 um. Importantly, despite a detector quantum efficiency of only 0.19% at 1100 nm, robust reconstructions are obtained under low-photon-budget conditions. We further identify advantageous mechanism by which increasing the sample-sensor distance from ~3 to 12 mm improves lateral resolution by twofold under strong scattering. Finally, we demonstrate wide-field, label-free amplitude-phase imaging of uncleared mouse tissues, resolving internal structure in brain and liver slices up to ~250 um and ~60 um, respectively. By extending lensless complex-field microscopy into strongly scattering regimes with minimal hardware changes, this work has relevance to computational imaging through complex media and biophotonics.

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Emilia Wdowiak, Piotr Arcab, Mikolaj Rogalski, Anna Chwastowicz, Pawel Matryba, Malgorzata Lenarcik, Julianna Winnik, Piotr Zdankowski, Maciej Trusiak. 2026-02-16. Near-infrared lensless holographic microscopy on a visible sensor enables label-free high-throughput imaging in strong scattering. https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.14762

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