Single-shot ptychography with highly tilted illuminations

Abstract

A method based on highly tilted illumination and non-paraxial iterative computation is proposed to improve the image quality of single-shot 3D ptychography. A thick sample is illuminated with a cluster of laser beams that are separated by large enough angles to record each diffraction pattern distinctly in a single exposure. 3D structure of the thick sample is accurately reconstructed from recorded diffraction patterns using a modified multi-slice algorithm to process non-paraxial illumination. Sufficient number of recorded diffraction patterns with noticeably low crosstalk enhances the fidelity of reconstruction significantly over single-shot 3D ptychography methods that are based on paraxial illumination. Experimental observations guided by the results of numerical simulations show the feasibility of the proposed method.