Park Yong-geun, a professor in the Department of Physics at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), and his research team developed a technology to observe three-dimensional biological tissue similar to the pancreas at high resolution without staining.
KAIST noted on the 5th that Professor Park's team developed a technology to observe thick biological tissue in real time at high resolution by utilizing the optical memory effect. The research results were published on Feb. 17 in the international journal Nature Communications.
Existing optical technologies suffered from optical aberration when observing thick biological tissues due to scattering of light that occurs inside the tissue, which degrades image quality.
The research team solved the problem by utilizing the optical memory effect. The optical memory effect is a phenomenon where, when light bends, the scattered light also bends, and it can be observed even in complex scattering media like biological tissue. The research team analyzed the phase difference caused by small changes in the angle of incidence of light using the optical memory effect, and detected and corrected the aberration based on this.
As a result of applying the newly developed technique, the cellular structure inside the biological tissue could be observed in greater detail. The team also succeeded in capturing changes occurring in micrometer-sized samples in real time.
Professor Park said, “This research represents a new approach to overcoming the limitations of existing imaging technology, which will greatly impact non-invasive biological imaging and diagnostic research based on holotomography.” He added, “In the future, we plan to continue research to understand various life phenomena at the cellular level through more precise three-dimensional imaging of biological tissues.”
References
Nature Communications (2025), DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-56865-z