Reconstructions of refractive index tomograms via discrete algebraic reconstruction technique

Abstract: Optical diffraction tomography (ODT) provides three-dimensional refractive index (RI) tomograms of a transparent microscopic object. However, because of the finite numerical aperture of objective lenses, ODT has the limited access to diffracted light and suffers from poor spatial resolution, particularly along the axial direction. To overcome the limitation of the quality of RI tomography, we present an algorithm that accurately reconstructs RI tomography using preliminary information that the RI values of a specimen are discrete and uniform. Through simulations and experiments on various samples, including microspheres, red blood cells, and water droplets, we show that the proposed method can precisely reconstruct RI tomograms of samples with discrete and uniform RI values in the presence of the missing information and noise.