Jones Matrix Microscopy for Living Eukaryotic Cells

Polarization of light carries important information regarding the materials included by biological samples. A Jones matrix is a general tool for quantifying the degree of polarization, however, its measurement has been limited mostly to connective tissues with strong polarization response due to the lack of measurement sensitivity. Here, we demonstrate polarization phase microscopy capable of measuring a Jones matrix of a living eukaryotic cell. Our strategy combines synthetic aperture imaging with polarization phase microscopy to improve the polarization sensitivity. The resultant suppression of intrinsic phase noise in the measurement allows a Jones matrix of a single eukaryotic cell to be clearly visualized. Using the synthesized Jones matrices, the characteristic cellular polarization properties of normal and cancer cells were quantified, and substantial differences between the two kinds were quantitatively identified.