Advanced Microscopy and Instrumentation Research Center, School of Instrumentation Science and Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, 150080, China.
School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, 50 Nanyang Avenue, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, 639798, Singapore.
Nat Commun. 2023 Apr 12;14(1):2063. doi: 10.1038/s41467-023-37606-6.
Differential interference contrast (DIC) microscopy allows high-contrast, low-phototoxicity, and label-free imaging of transparent biological objects, and has been applied in the field of cellular morphology, cell segmentation, particle tracking, optical measurement and others. Commercial DIC microscopy based on Nomarski or Wollaston prism resorts to the interference of two polarized waves with a lateral differential offset (shear) and axial phase shift (bias). However, the shear generated by these prisms is limited to the rectilinear direction, unfortunately resulting in anisotropic contrast imaging. Here we propose an ultracompact metasurface-assisted isotropic DIC (i-DIC) microscopy based on a grand original pattern of radial shear interferometry, that converts the rectilinear shear into rotationally symmetric along radial direction, enabling single-shot isotropic imaging capabilities. The i-DIC presents a complementary fusion of typical meta-optics, traditional microscopes and integrated optical system, and showcases the promising and synergetic advancements in edge detection, particle motion tracking, and label-free cellular imaging.
微分干涉对比（DIC）显微镜允许对透明生物物体进行高对比度、低光毒性和无标记成像，已应用于细胞形态学、细胞分割、粒子跟踪、光学测量等领域。基于诺马斯基或沃拉斯顿棱镜的商用 DIC 显微镜依赖于具有横向差分偏移（剪切）和轴向相移（偏置）的两个偏振波的干涉。然而，这些棱镜产生的剪切仅限于直线方向，不幸的是导致各向异性对比度成像。在这里，我们提出了一种基于径向剪切干涉仪的超紧凑的基于超表面的各向同性 DIC（i-DIC）显微镜，该显微镜将直线剪切转换为沿径向的旋转对称，从而实现单次各向同性成像能力。i-DIC 是典型的超光学、传统显微镜和集成光学系统的互补融合，展示了在边缘检测、粒子运动跟踪和无标记细胞成像方面有前途和协同的进展。
