Master of Science Paweł Piotr Gocłowski will Monday June 29th, 2026, at 12:15 hold his Thesis Defense for the PhD degree in Science. The title of the thesis is:
« Optical Diffraction Tomography for life sciences »
Quantitative phase microscopy (QPM) enables label-free measurement of local optical path length variations, providing critical insight into the structure and dynamics of transparent biological specimens. Optical diffraction tomography (ODT) merges principles of QPM with collecting angular projections to measure the three-dimensional refractive index (RI) distribution of the object.
In this thesis a new versatile microscopy system is proposed, based on a novel double Sagnac common-path interferometric configuration combined with pseudo-thermal illumination. The system can be quickly switched between the two modalities: lateral shearing QPM (LS-QPM) for phase imaging of highly motile cells and lateral shearing ODT (LS-ODT) for refractive index reconstruction of heterogeneous thick samples.
Proposed approach merges a few unique advantages, which contribute to the versatility of the system. Phase microscopy is by default a label-free, bio-friendly technique which provides quantitative information about the sample. Common-path configuration ensures temporal stability and high contrast interference fringes immune to multiple scattering. Single shot phase reconstruction enables high framerate imaging, while reduced coherence of the light provides superior spatial phase sensitivity. The approach is tested on large variety of specimens, including calibration objects (beads, cell phantoms), live cells, tissue sections and organoids.
1st Opponent: Professor Dag Kristian Dysthe, Department of Physics, University of Oslo, Norway
2nd Opponent: Associate Professor Caroline Beck Adiels, Department of Physics, Gothenburg University, Sweden
Internal member and leader of the committee: Researcher Roman Zakoldaev, Department of Physics and Technology, UiT, Norway
The defence and trial lecture will be streamed from these following links at Panopto:
Defence (12:15 - 16:00)
Trial Lecture (10:15 - 11:15)
The abstract of the thesis is available at Munin Here.