Algorithmic self-calibration for optimized 3D quantitative differential phase contrast microscopy

3D differential phase contrast (3D DPC) microscopy uses asymmetric illumination patterns and axial scanning to recover volumetric maps of refractive index. To avoid the expense of automated axial scanning, we demonstrate 3D DPC without a z-stage by hand spinning the microscope’s defocus knob to scan the object axially while updating illumination patterns on the LED-array microscope. We utilize an inverse problem optimization to retrieve the sample’s volumetric information with measurements from unknown axial positions by jointly solving for each measurement’s axial position. Finally, we explore how to optimize the LED-array illumination patterns for varying axial sampling rates.