Azimuthal-rotation evanescent-wave illumination incoherent scattering microscopy (AR-EISM) for label-free, high-contrast imaging.

Authors

Songlin Yang, Dingcheng Qi, Qingan Tang, Ran Ye, Yong-Hong Ye

Published in

Optics letters. Volume 51. Issue 21. Pages 6002-6005. Nov 01, 2026. Epub Oct 02, 2026.

Abstract

Evanescent-wave (EW) illumination provides high sensitivity and high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) for label-free imaging. However, coherent illumination introduces speckle and interference artifacts, while single-direction illumination leads to direction-dependent spatial resolution. Here, we propose azimuthal-rotation evanescent-wave illumination incoherent scattering microscopy (AR-EISM), which continuously rotates incoherent illumination over 360^∘ during a single exposure to reduce the directional dependence of spatial resolution. Imaging experiments with polystyrene nanoparticles using EW illumination with a transverse wavevector of approximately 1.3k₀ demonstrate that AR-EISM achieves a lateral resolution close to the theoretical Abbe diffraction limit, together with a 1.37-fold increase in SNR and higher imaging contrast compared with conventional dark-field microscopy. These findings highlight the potential of AR-EISM for high-contrast, label-free imaging.

PMID:
42962108
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 31 Oct 2026.

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