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Chromatix: a differentiable, GPU-accelerated wave-optics library.

Journal articles  - Journal Article
Deb, D; Both, G-J; Bezzam, E; Kohli, A; Yang, S; Chaware, A; Allier, C; Cai, C; Anderberg, G; Eybposh, MH; Schneider, MC; Heintzmann, R ...
Published in: Nature methods
July 2026

Many current microscopy methods incorporate computational modeling as an integral part of the imaging process, either to solve inverse problems or optimize the optical system design itself. These methods often depend on differentiable optics simulations, yet no standardized framework exists, forcing computational optics researchers to repeatedly and independently implement simulations with limited reusability and performance. These common problems limit the potential impact of computational optics as a field. Here we present Chromatix: an open-source, graphics processing unit (GPU)-accelerated, differentiable wave-optics simulation library. Chromatix builds on JAX to democratize fast, parallelized simulation of diverse optical systems and expand the design space in computational optics. Chromatix standardizes a growing collection of optical elements and propagation methods allowing a broad range of applications, which we demonstrate here for snapshot microscopy, holography and phase retrieval. We demonstrate speed improvements of 2-6 times on a single GPU and up to 22 times on 8 GPUs.

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Published In

Nature methods

DOI

EISSN

1548-7105

ISSN

1548-7091

Publication Date

July 2026

Volume

23

Issue

7

Start / End Page

1388 / 1398

Related Subject Headings

  • Software
  • Optics and Photonics
  • Microscopy
  • Image Processing, Computer-Assisted
  • Holography
  • Developmental Biology
  • Computer Simulation
  • Computer Graphics
  • Algorithms
  • 31 Biological sciences
 

Citation

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Deb, D., Both, G.-J., Bezzam, E., Kohli, A., Yang, S., Chaware, A., … Turaga, S. C. (2026). Chromatix: a differentiable, GPU-accelerated wave-optics library. Nature Methods, 23(7), 1388–1398. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41592-026-03121-x
Deb, Diptodip, Gert-Jan Both, Eric Bezzam, Amit Kohli, Siqi Yang, Amey Chaware, Cédric Allier, et al. “Chromatix: a differentiable, GPU-accelerated wave-optics library.” Nature Methods 23, no. 7 (July 2026): 1388–98. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41592-026-03121-x.
Deb D, Both G-J, Bezzam E, Kohli A, Yang S, Chaware A, et al. Chromatix: a differentiable, GPU-accelerated wave-optics library. Nature methods. 2026 Jul;23(7):1388–98.
Deb, Diptodip, et al. “Chromatix: a differentiable, GPU-accelerated wave-optics library.” Nature Methods, vol. 23, no. 7, July 2026, pp. 1388–98. Epmc, doi:10.1038/s41592-026-03121-x.
Deb D, Both G-J, Bezzam E, Kohli A, Yang S, Chaware A, Allier C, Cai C, Anderberg G, Eybposh MH, Schneider MC, Heintzmann R, Rivera-Sanchez FA, Simmerer C, Meng G, Tormes-Vaquerano J, Han S, Shanmugavel SC, Maruvada T, Yang X, Kim Y, Diederich B, Joo C, Waller L, Durr NJ, Pégard NC, La Rivière PJ, Horstmeyer R, Chowdhury S, Turaga SC. Chromatix: a differentiable, GPU-accelerated wave-optics library. Nature methods. 2026 Jul;23(7):1388–1398.

Published In

Nature methods

DOI

EISSN

1548-7105

ISSN

1548-7091

Publication Date

July 2026

Volume

23

Issue

7

Start / End Page

1388 / 1398

Related Subject Headings

  • Software
  • Optics and Photonics
  • Microscopy
  • Image Processing, Computer-Assisted
  • Holography
  • Developmental Biology
  • Computer Simulation
  • Computer Graphics
  • Algorithms
  • 31 Biological sciences