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The applications of conventional ptychography are limited by its relatively low resolution and throughput in the visible light regime. The new development of coded ptychography (CP) has addressed these issues and achieved the highest numerical aperture for large-area optical imaging in a lensless configuration. A high-quality reconstruction of CP relies on precise tracking of the coded sensor’s positional shifts. The coded layer on the sensor, however, prevents the use of cross correlation analysis for motion tracking. Here we derive and analyze the motion tracking model of CP. A novel, to the best of our knowledge, remote referencing scheme and its subsequent refinement pipeline are developed for blind image acquisition. By using this approach, we can suppress the correlation peak caused by the coded surface and recover the positional shifts with deep sub-pixel accuracy. In contrast with common positional refinement methods, the reported approach can be disentangled from the iterative phase retrieval process and is computationally efficient. It allows blind image acquisition without motion feedback from the scanning process. It also provides a robust and reliable solution for implementing ptychography with high imaging throughput. We validate this approach by performing high-resolution whole slide imaging of bio-specimens.
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This content will become publicly available on February 1, 2026
Super-Resolution Ptychography with Small Segmented Detectors
Abstract To overcome the spatial resolution limit set by aperture-limited diffraction in traditional scanning transmission electron microscopy, microscopists have developed ptychography enabled by iterative phase retrieval algorithms and high-dynamic-range pixel array detectors. Current detector designs are limited by the data rate off chip, so a high-pixel-count detector has a proportionally lower frame rate than the few-segment detectors used for differential phase contrast (DPC) imaging. This slower acquisition speed leads to heightened vulnerability to scan noise, drift, and potential sample damage. This creates opportunities for repurposing fast segmented detectors for ptychography by trading a reduction in reciprocal space pixels for an increase in real space pixels. Here, we explore a strategy of oversampling in real space and instead apply detector pixel upsampling during the reconstruction process. We demonstrate the viability of achieving super-resolution ptychography on thin objects using only 2 × 2 detector pixels, surpassing the resolution of integrated DPC (iDPC) imaging. With optimization using simulated datasets and experiments on MoTe2/WSe2 bilayer moiré superlattices, we achieved super-resolution ptychography reconstructions under rapid acquisition conditions (37.5 pA, 1 μs dwell time), yielding over 50% improvements in contrast and information limit compared to annular dark field and iDPC imaging on the same detectors.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2039380
- PAR ID:
- 10597624
- Publisher / Repository:
- Oxford University Press
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Microscopy and Microanalysis
- Volume:
- 31
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 1431-9276
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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