No Arabic abstract
Multifocal microscopy (MFM) offers high-speed three-dimensional imaging through the simultaneous image capture from multiple focal planes. Conventional MFM systems use a fabricated grating in the emission path for a single emission wavelength band and one set of focal plane separations. While a Spatial Light Modulator (SLM) can add more flexibility, the relatively small number of pixels in the SLM chip, cross-talk between the pixels, and aberrations in the imaging system can produce non-uniform intensity in the different axially separated image planes. We present an in situ iterative SLM calibration algorithm that overcomes these optical- and hardware-related limitations to deliver near-uniform intensity across all focal planes. Using immobilized gold nanoparticles under darkfield illumination, we demonstrate superior intensity evenness compared to current methods. We also demonstrate applicability across emission wavelengths, axial plane separations, imaging modalities, SLM settings, and different SLM manufacturers. Therefore, our microscope design and algorithms provide an alternative to fabricated gratings in MFM, as they are relatively simple and could find broad applications in the wider research community.
Magnetic resonance spectroscopy is universally regarded as one of the most important tools in chemical and bio-medical research. However, sensitivity limitations typically restrict imaging resolution to length scales greater than 10 mu m. Here we bring quantum control to the detection of chemical systems to demonstrate high resolution electron spin imaging using the quantum properties of an array of nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centres in diamond. Our quantum magnetic resonance microscope selectively images electronic spin species by precisely tuning a magnetic field to bring the quantum probes into resonance with the external target spins. This provides diffraction limited spatial resolution of the target spin species over a field of view of ~50x50 mu m^2. We demonstrate imaging and spectroscopy on aqueous Cu2+ ions over microscopic volumes (0.025 mu m^3), with detection sensitivity at resonance of 104 spins/voxel, ~100 zeptomol (10^-19 mol). The ability to image, perform spectroscopy and dynamically monitor spin-dependent redox reactions and transition metal biochemistry at these scales opens up a new realm of nanoscopic electron spin resonance and zepto-chemistry in the physical and life sciences.
We report a new method to generate uniform large-scale optical focus arrays (LOFAs). By identifying and removing undesired phase rotation in the iterative Fourier-transform algorithm (IFTA), our approach rapidly produces computer-generated holograms of highly uniform LOFAs. The new algorithm also shows faster compensation of system-induced LOFA intensity inhomogeneity than the conventional IFTA. After just three adaptive correction steps, we demonstrate LOFAs consisting of $mathcal{O}(10^3)$ optical foci with $> 98 %$ intensity uniformity.
The liver performs critical physiological functions, including metabolizing and removing substances, such as toxins and drugs, from the bloodstream. Hepatotoxicity itself is intimately linked to abnormal hepatic transport and hepatotoxicity remains the primary reason drugs in development fail and approved drugs are withdrawn from the market. For this reason, we propose to analyze, across liver compartments, the transport kinetics of fluorescein-a fluorescent marker used as a proxy for drug molecules-using intravital microscopy data. To resolve the transport kinetics quantitatively from fluorescence data, we account for the effect that different liver compartments (with different chemical properties) have on fluoresceins emission rate. To do so, we develop ordinary differential equation transport models from the data where the kinetics are related to the observable fluorescence levels by measurement parameters that vary across different liver compartments. On account of the steep non-linearities in the kinetics and stochasticity inherent to the model, we infer kinetic and measurement parameters by generalizing the method of parameter cascades. For this application, the method of parameter cascades ensures fast and precise parameter estimates from noisy time traces.
We demonstrate the ability to excite atoms at well-defined, programmable locations in a magneto-optical trap, either to the continuum (ionisation), or to a Rydberg state. To this end, excitation laser light is shaped into arbitrary intensity patterns with a spatial light modulator. These optical patterns are sensitive to aberrations of the phase of the light field, occuring while traversing the optical beamline. These aberrations are characterised and corrected without observing the actual light field in the vacuum chamber.
We manipulate a Bose-Einstein condensate using the optical trap created by the diffraction of a laser beam on a fast ferro-electric liquid crystal spatial light modulator. The modulator acts as a phase grating which can generate arbitrary diffraction patterns and be rapidly reconfigured at rates up to 1 kHz to create smooth, time-varying optical potentials. The flexibility of the device is demonstrated with our experimental results for splitting a Bose-Einstein condensate and independently transporting the separate parts of the atomic cloud.