Structured illumination microscopy using digital micro-mirror device and coherent light source

Structured illumination microscopy (SIM) achieves doubled spatial resolution by exciting the specimen with a high-contrast, high-frequency sinusoidal pattern. Such an excitation pattern can be generated by interference between multiple laser beams, which are diffracted from a grating. In SIM, 2D imaging requires 9 patterns and 3D imaging requires 15 patterns. Compared to mechanical movement of gratings, opti-electro devices provide rapid switch of the excitation patterns, in which Digital Micro-mirror Device (DMD) is most common in industry. Here we model DMD as the blazed grating and report a fast and cost-efficient SIM. Our home-built DMD-based laser interference structured illumination microscopy (DMD-ISIM) system reveals the nuclear pore complex and microtubule in mammalian cells with doubled spatial resolution. We further proposed multi-color DMD-ISIM system with simulation, which could potentially exploit the full power of DMD-ISIM.