High-resolution 3D imaging in light-field microscopy through Stokes matrices and data fusion

Abstract

The trade-off between the lateral and vertical resolution has long posed challenges to the efficient and widespread application of Fourier light-field microscopy, a highly scalable 3D imaging tool. Although existing methods for resolution enhancement can improve the measurement result to a certain extent, they come with limitations in terms of accuracy and applicable specimen types. To address these problems, this paper proposed a resolution enhancement scheme utilizing data fusion of polarization Stokes vectors and light-field information for Fourier light-field microscopy system. By introducing the surface normal vector information obtained from polarization measurement and integrating it with the light-field 3D point cloud data, 3D reconstruction results accuracy is highly improved in axial direction. Experimental results with a Fourier light-field 3D imaging microscope demonstrated a substantial enhancement of vertical resolution with a depth resolution to depth of field ratio of 0.19%. This represented approximately 44 times the improvement compared to the theoretical ratio before data fusion, enabling the system to access more detailed information with finer measurement accuracy for test samples. This work not only provides a feasible solution for breaking the limitations imposed by traditional light-field microscope hardware configurations but also offers superior 3D measurement approach in a more cost-effective and practical manner.