Impact of refractive index heterogeneity on stimulated Brillouin scattering microscopy: a quantitative analysis
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arXiv
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| Autores principales: | , , , , , , |
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| Formato: | Preprint |
| Publicado: |
2026
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| _version_ | 1866912997420564480 |
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| author | Xu, Meng Du, Zixuan Qi, Yun Zhang, Jinrui Yao, Shuai Prevedel, Robert Yang, Fan |
| author_facet | Xu, Meng Du, Zixuan Qi, Yun Zhang, Jinrui Yao, Shuai Prevedel, Robert Yang, Fan |
| contents | Stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) microscopy enables label-free biomechanical imaging, with Brillouin gain serving as a critical contrast parameter for quantitative analysis. However, the influence of sample-induced refractive index (RI) heterogeneity on gain measurements remains poorly understood. Here, we quantitatively investigate, how RI mismatch affects SBS microscopy using finite element simulations and experiments on a phantom sample comprising polydimethylsiloxane beads embedded in agarose gel. We demonstrate that RI heterogeneity induces focal field distortion that reduce pump-probe beam overlap, resulting in attenuated Brillouin gain and degraded shift precision at material interfaces. Crucially, we establish that fiber-coupling efficiency, commonly used for system alignment, cannot serve as a linear proxy for Brillouin gain due to its heightened sensitivity to focal field distortion. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_07097 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Impact of refractive index heterogeneity on stimulated Brillouin scattering microscopy: a quantitative analysis Xu, Meng Du, Zixuan Qi, Yun Zhang, Jinrui Yao, Shuai Prevedel, Robert Yang, Fan Optics Applied Physics Stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) microscopy enables label-free biomechanical imaging, with Brillouin gain serving as a critical contrast parameter for quantitative analysis. However, the influence of sample-induced refractive index (RI) heterogeneity on gain measurements remains poorly understood. Here, we quantitatively investigate, how RI mismatch affects SBS microscopy using finite element simulations and experiments on a phantom sample comprising polydimethylsiloxane beads embedded in agarose gel. We demonstrate that RI heterogeneity induces focal field distortion that reduce pump-probe beam overlap, resulting in attenuated Brillouin gain and degraded shift precision at material interfaces. Crucially, we establish that fiber-coupling efficiency, commonly used for system alignment, cannot serve as a linear proxy for Brillouin gain due to its heightened sensitivity to focal field distortion. |
| title | Impact of refractive index heterogeneity on stimulated Brillouin scattering microscopy: a quantitative analysis |
| topic | Optics Applied Physics |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.07097 |