Fast Fourier ptychographic microscopy based on annular illumination and parallel acquisition

The recent Fourier ptychographic microscopy (FPM) for computational optical super-resolution imaging achieves a large field of view and high resolution without relying on precision instruments. However, current FPM requires extensive raw image acquisition for reconstruction, thus reducing the imaging efficiency. We propose a quantitative phase imaging method that combines bright-field annular-matched illumination with dark-field parallel-coded illumination. Based on parallel-coding illumination theory, our illumination scheme integrates single LED activation in bright-field annular-matched illumination and parallel LED activation in dark-field illumination, drastically reducing the data acquisition requirements for FPM reconstruction. Experimental results demonstrate that our combined FPM method acquires only eight raw images to realize fast quantitative phase imaging with a resolution three times the coherent diffraction limit, which improves the imaging efficiency by 50% compared with the traditional annular downsampling. Moreover, only 3.5% of the data for conventional FPM is required, substantially accelerating raw data acquisition and high-resolution image reconstruction. Our efficient FPM method can enable real-time dynamic imaging of living cells.