Quantitative three-dimensional reconstruction of limited-angle experimental measurements in diffraction tomography

Image reconstruction from limited-angle data is an important issue in diffraction tomography. The limitation of angular coverage usually occurs due to the physical constraints in measurement systems. Insufficient information will deteriorate the quality of reconstructed images. In our experimental setup, the angular range of the data scanning is limited. Here, we applied the iterative algorithm of total variation (TV) minimization to reconstruct the three-dimensional distribution of an object´s refractive index from measured phase data. TV-minimization is an edge-preserving technique commonly used in image processing. It can smooth away the noisy textures while retaining sharp edges. Despite a full range of illumination is lacking, we have successfully reconstructed the refractive index distribution of objects numerically and experimentally by use of the TV-minimization algorithm.