Recent results in optical diffraction microtomography

In this paper, we review recent results obtained using optical diffraction tomography (ODT) to generate the cross sectional, complex refractive index distribution of weakly scattering cylindrical objects (fibres). Two different ODT algorithms, based on inverse diffraction in combination with either filtered backpropagation or filtered backprojection, have been applied for reconstruction. Using both procedures, images showing noticeable image contrast for refractive index variations of about 0.001, and having a spatial resolution of about 2 mu m, have been obtained for objects with cross sectional diameters ranging from about 7 mu m to about 120 mu m. The good agreement between the two reconstruction algorithms suggests that both procedures can be used for quantitative imaging of semi-transparent fibres, and that three-dimensional imaging can be obtained in a relatively simple manner.