Multidimensional optical imaging through scattering

Optical imaging can utilize various optical phenomena to holistically probe an object’s properties with multiple dimensions of measurement. Unfortunately, optical imaging is limited by tissue scattering to imaging only outer superficial layers of an organism, or specific components isolated from within the organism and prepared in-vitro. I present recent developments in computational microscopy that enable 1) multi-dimensional 3D optical imaging with phase and fluorescence contrast; and 2) 3D refractive-index imaging of multiple-scattering samples. I will discuss the computational frameworks that underpin these applications, which are based on large-scale nonlinear and nonconvex optimization. Lastly, I will discuss extensions of this research for non-biological applications.