Non-invasive super-resolution imaging through scattering media using object fluctuation

• Main Authors: Zhu, Xiangwen, Sahoo, Sujit Kumar, Adamo, Giorgio, Tobing, Landobasa Yosef Mario, Zhang, Dao Hua, Dang, Cuong
• Other Authors: School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2024
• Subjects: Engineering; Physics; Speckle; Non-invasive; Super-resolution
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/177444; https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/lpor.202300712
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Introducing super-resolution techniques to imaging through scattering media potentially revolutionizes the technical analysis for many exotic applications, such as cell structures behind biological tissues. The main challenge is scattering media's inhomogeneous structures, which scramble the light path and create noise-like speckle patterns, hindering object's visualization even at a low-resolution level. Here, a computational method is proposed relying on the object's spatial and temporal fluctuation to visualize nanoscale objects through scattering media non-invasively. Taking advantage of the optical memory effect and multiple frames, the point spreading function (PSF) of scattering media is estimated. Multiple images of fluctuating objects are obtained by deconvolution; then, the super-resolution image is achieved by computing the higher-order cumulants. Non-linearity of high order cumulant significantly suppresses artifacts in the resulting images and enhances resolution by a factor of square root of N, where N is the cumulant order. The proof-of-concept demonstrates a resolution of 266 nm at the 6th-order cumulant with numerical aperture (NA) of 0.42, breaking the diffraction limit by a factor of 2.45. An adaptive approach is also demonstrated for imaging through dynamic scattering media. The non-invasive super-resolution speckle fluctuation imaging (NISFFI) presents a nanoscopy technique with straightforward imaging hardware configuration to visualize samples behind scattering media.