Shaping light for bio-imaging

Abstract

Advances in bio-imaging have enable observation of light at higher spatiotemporal resolutions. In general, the spatiotemporal resolution is fixed across the field of view. This comes as a limitation for instance, when we want to apply fluorescence based superresolution techniques. Since all fluorescence based superresolution technologies developed to date induce a loss in temporal resolution, the temporal resolution is decreased across the entire field of view. Here, we demonstrate how we can shape the illumination beam to enable different imaging characteristics across the field of view simultaneously. For example, by illuminating selective sinusoidal illumination patterns, we realize tunable SIM, a novel dynamic adaptive structured illumination microscope which realizes varying spatiotemporal resolutions across the field of view that can adapt to the user’s needs. We further discuss how we can use custom illumination to enable stroboscopic or high dynamic range imaging for advanced bio imaging applications.