Methods and apparatus for laser scanning structured illumination microscopy and tomography

A structured illumination microscopy system comprising:

• a laser source to generate excitation illumination directed toward a target object;
• a modulator to modulate the excitation illumination temporally in a controllable, periodic spatial pattern to be constructed on the target object to provide sub-diffractional resolution in a lateral direction with respect to the target object;
• two synchronized laser scanning mirrors in confocal arrangement, the two laser scanning mirrors units to be synchronized and controlled to translate the temporally modulated illumination into the periodic spatial pattern on the target object, a first of the two scanning mirrors to receive the modulated excitation illumination and project the modulated excitation illumination with a controllable phase delay on the target object in periodic spatial pattern by linearly steering a focal spot of the modulated excitation illumination in the lateral direction to transform the modulated excitation illumination into the periodic spatial pattern, wherein tuning of a frequency of the temporal modulation determines a period of the spatial pattern, and a second of the two scanning mirrors to receive emission fluorescence from the target object generated by the periodic spatial pattern of modulated excitation illumination and project the emission fluorescence;
• a detector to collect emission fluorescence from the target object via the second of the two scanning mirrors for processing to form an image;
• and
• a computing device to control the modulator to modulate the excitation illumination temporally in a controllable, periodic spatial pattern and to control the periodic spatial pattern with respect to the first scanning mirror to enhance lateral resolution beyond a diffraction limit in the image formed based on the emission fluorescence collected from the target object via the second scanning mirror by shifting high spatial frequencies in a Fourier domain into a detectable range to enhance the lateral resolution beyond the diffraction limit, wherein the computing device further controls the modulation of the excitation illumination to include a non-integer number of modulation periods to control the phase delay.