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arXiv · 2604.20112

Tailored Speckle Illumination Microscopy with Enhanced Sectioning and Image Quality

SeungYun Han·KyeoReh Lee·Young Seo Kim·Chuan Li·Nicholas Bender·Kabish Wisal·Taeyun Ku·Jerome Mertz·Hui Cao
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Abstract

Optical speckle patterns have been widely used for illumination in computational imaging, optical sectioning microscopy, and super-resolution imaging. However, commonly used speckles satisfy Rayleigh statistics, which are not ideal for diverse imaging applications. Here we tailor three-dimensional speckle intensity statistics for dynamic speckle illumination microscopy based on linear fluorescence. Optical sectioning is enhanced by axially varying speckle contrast, and image reconstruction noise is minimized with in-focus speckles of binary intensities. The customized speckle statistics are shown to tolerate sample-induced aberration and scattering. We apply tailored speckle illumination to mouse brain vascular imaging and demonstrate much improved image quality than optical-sectioning structured illumination. These results establish customization of speckle intensity statistics as a promising strategy for robust, high-throughput fluorescence imaging in thick, scattering biological specimens.

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SeungYun Han, KyeoReh Lee, Young Seo Kim, Chuan Li, Nicholas Bender, Kabish Wisal, Taeyun Ku, Jerome Mertz, Hui Cao. 2026-04-22. Tailored Speckle Illumination Microscopy with Enhanced Sectioning and Image Quality. https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.20112

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