Transfer-Function Approach to Substrate-Enhanced Diffraction Tomography
Abstract
Forward and backward scattering provide complementary volumetric and interfacial information, yet conventional three-dimensional (3D) imaging typically accesses only one. In this Letter, we present a substrate-enhanced diffraction tomography approach that simultaneously recovers both channels under multi-angle epi-illumination.This geometry captures one forward- and two backward-scattering bands in axially symmetric Fourier regions, where their complementary coverage enables phase-absorption separation in a non-Hermitian spectrum. Explicit 3D transfer functions are derived for both channels, and an axial Kramers-Kronig relation is established to incorporate substrate-induced boundary conditions in a unified framework. Our results establish a label-free, high-resolution 3D imaging modality that surpasses the limits of existing methods.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2509.20676,
title = {Transfer-Function Approach to Substrate-Enhanced Diffraction Tomography},
author = {Tongyu Li and Yi Shen and Dashan Dong and Danchen Jia and Jianpeng Ao and Ji-Xin Cheng and Lei Tian},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2509.20676},
year = {2026}
}