Polarization-sensitive interferometric synthetic aperture microscopy.

Three-dimensional optical microscopy suffers from the well-known compromise between transverse resolution and depth-of-field. This is true for both structural imaging methods and their functional extensions. Interferometric synthetic aperture microscopy (ISAM) is a solution to the 3D coherent microscopy inverse problem that provides depth-independent transverse resolution. We demonstrate the extension of ISAM to polarization sensitive imaging, termed polarization-sensitive interferometric synthetic aperture microscopy (PS-ISAM). This technique is the first functionalization of the ISAM method and provides improved depth-of-field for polarization-sensitive imaging. The basic assumptions of polarization-sensitive imaging are explored, and refocusing of birefringent structures is experimentally demonstrated. PS-ISAM enables high-resolution volumetric imaging of birefringent materials and tissue.