Optical anisotropy is an intrinsic property of many materials which originates from the structural arrangement of molecular structures. Various polarization-sensitive imaging (PSI) methods have been developed to visualize and quantify the birefringence of the optically anisotropic materials. Recently, volumetric imaging techniques were introduced to investigate the three-dimensional (3D) anisotropy distribution. However, those 3D PSI methods are mostly based on single-scattering approximation, which are not suitable for optically complicated, multiple-scattering 3D objects. In this presentation, we present a novel non-interferometric 3D polarization-sensitive computational imaging technology—polarization-sensitive intensity diffraction tomography (PS-IDT) —that enables the reconstruction of 3D anisotropy distribution of both weakly and multiple scattering specimens from intensity-only measurements. We demonstrate the 3D birefringence imaging capabilities of PS-IDT by presenting 3D anisotropy maps of various samples, including potato starch granules and tardigrade.
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