Selective plane illumination microscopy with structured illumination based on spatial light modulators

Structured-illumination microscopy (SIM) is an efficacious tool to decrease the contribution of the out-of-focus light to images of specimens. However, in SIM, the frequency of the spatial modulation applied to specimens should be adjustable according to the optical properties of the specimens to reach the optimal contrasts. Hence, a common theme in SIM is how the flexibility and quality of modulations at different frequencies can be improved. Digital scanned laser light-sheet microscopy with structured illumination (DSLM-SI) has been the most flexible means for generating modulation and optical sectioning. The complexity of synchronization between the temporal modulation and the beam scanning makes it hard to use and less stable; it also takes more time to acquire images for one plane than selective plane illumination microscopy (SPIM). In this report, we present a recent effort to use a spatial light modulator (SLM) to provide spatial modulation in SPIM. With the SLM, both of the frequency and phase of lateral modulation can be changed rapidly; moreover, this SLM-based SPIM can achieve fast imaging without mechanical moving parts.