Structured illumination microscopy with partially coherent illumination for phase and fluorescent imaging

This study presents a partially coherent illumination based (PCI-based) SIM apparatus for dual-modality (phase and fluorescent) microscopic imaging. The partially coherent illumination (PCI) is generated by placing a rotating diffuser on a monochromatic laser beam, which suppresses speckle noise in the dual-modality images and endows the apparatus with sound sectioning capability. With this system, label-free quantitative phase and super-resolved/sectioned fluorescent images can be obtained for the same sample. We have demonstrated the superiority of the system in phase imaging of transparent cells with high endogenous contrast and in a quantitative manner. In the meantime, we have also demonstrated fluorescent imaging of fluorescent beads, rat tail crosscut, wheat anther, and hibiscus pollen with super-resolution and optical sectioning. We envisage that the proposed method can be applied to many fields, including but not limited to biomedical, industrial, chemistry fields. (C) 2021 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreement