Diffraction microtomography with sample rotation: primary result on the influence of a missing apple core in the recorded frequency space

Diffraction microtomography in coherent light is foreseen as a promising technique to image transparent living samples in three dimensions without staining. Contrary to conventional microscopy with incoherent light, which gives morphological information only, diffraction microtomography makes it possible to obtain the complex optical refractive index of the observed sample by mapping a three-dimensional support in the spatial frequency domain. The technique can be implemented in two configurations, namely, by varying the sample illumination with a fixed sample or by rotating the sample using a fixed illumination. In the literature, only the former method was described in detail. In this report, we derive the three-dimensional frequency support that can be mapped by the sample rotation configuration. We found that, within the first-order Born approximation, the volume of the frequency domain that can be mapped exhibits a missing part, the shape of which resembles that of an apple core. A brightfield transmission microscope was modified to form a Mach-Zehnder interferometer that was used to generate phase-shifted holograms recorded in image plane. We report preliminary experimental results.