Title: Single-cell diffraction tomography with optofluidic rotation about a tilted axis,
Abstract: Optical diffraction tomography (ODT) is a tomographic technique that can be
used to measure the three-dimensional (3D) refractive index distribution within
living cells without the requirement of any marker. In principle, ODT can be
regarded as a generalization of optical projection tomography which is
equivalent to computerized tomography (CT). Both optical tomographic techniques
require projection-phase images of cells measured at multiple angles. However,
the reconstruction of the 3D refractive index distribution post-measurement
differs for the two techniques. It is known that ODT yields better results than
projection tomography, because it takes into account diffraction of the imaging
light due to the refractive index structure of the sample. Here, we apply ODT
to biological cells in a microfluidic chip which combines optical trapping and
microfluidic flow to achieve an optofluidic single-cell rotation. In
particular, we address the problem that arises when the trapped cell is not
rotating about an axis perpendicular to the imaging plane, but instead about an
arbitrarily tilted axis. In this paper we show that the 3D reconstruction can
be improved by taking into account such a tilted rotational axis in the
reconstruction process.