Stochastic transfer function for structured illumination microscopy.

The stochastic transfer function extends the concept of the conventional transfer function by incorporating noise statistics, thus giving a measure of the signal-to-noise ratio at each spatial frequency. This provides a convenient and standardized metric to assess the trade-off in terms of spatial frequency bandwidth and signal-to-noise ratio for a diverse range of resolution enhancement techniques. We apply this concept to structured illumination microscopy and compare its noise performance as a function of frequency with the conventional wide-field fluorescent microscope. The result suggests how a hybrid algorithm further improves the photon efficiency of the structured illumination technique.