Converting lateral scanning into axial focusing to speed up three-dimensional microscopy.
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Peer-reviewed
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Abstract
In optical microscopy, the slow axial scanning rate of the objective or the sample has traditionally limited the speed of volumetric imaging. Recently, by conjugating either a movable mirror to the image plane in a remote-focusing geometry or an electrically tuneable lens (ETL) to the back focal plane, rapid axial scanning has been achieved. However, mechanical actuation of a mirror limits the axial scanning rate (usually only 10-100 Hz for piezoelectric or voice coil-based actuators), while ETLs introduce spherical and higher-order aberrations that prevent high-resolution imaging. In an effort to overcome these limitations, we introduce a novel optical design that transforms a lateral-scan motion into a spherical aberration-free axial scan that can be used for high-resolution imaging. Using a galvanometric mirror, we scan a laser beam laterally in a remote-focusing arm, which is then back-reflected from different heights of a mirror in the image space. We characterize the optical performance of this remote-focusing technique and use it to accelerate axially swept light-sheet microscopy by an order of magnitude, allowing the quantification of rapid vesicular dynamics in three dimensions. We also demonstrate resonant remote focusing at 12 kHz with a two-photon raster-scanning microscope, which allows rapid imaging of brain tissues and zebrafish cardiac dynamics with diffraction-limited resolution.
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Funder: MedImmune, and Infinitus (China) Ltd.
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2047-7538
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Wellcome Trust (089703/Z/09/Z)
Medical Research Council (MR/K015850/1)
Medical Research Council (MR/K02292X/1)
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/L015889/1)
Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BB/H023917/1)
Medical Research Council (G0902243)
Wellcome Trust (203249/Z/16/Z)