Large-area, high-resolution optical anisotropy imaging with polarization-sensitive Fourier ptychoraphy

We present polarization-sensitive Fourier ptychographic microscopy (PS-FPM) capable of generating high-resolution birefringence images of optically anisotropic specimens with large field-of-view (FoV). FPM produces high-resolution complex object field of transparent samples over a large-FoV based on multiple intensity measurements acquired with various illumination angles and ptychographic iteration engine. We combine this attractive feature of FPM with single-input-state illumination and pixelated polarized camera to achieve imaging of both complex and birefringence information of transparent objects. Compared to conventional polarization imaging techniques, PS-FPM does not involve any mechanical rotation of polarizer/analyzer and achieves birefringence imaging with a half-pitch resolution of 0.55-μm over 3.78-mm² FoV, which corresponds to the space-bandwidth product of 12.5 megapixels. We demonstrate high-resolution, large-area birefringence imaging capability of PS-FPM by presenting birefringence images of various anisotropic objects.