Lens-based scanning nanoscopic imaging platform
Abstract
This DURIP was used to purchase a lens-based scanning optical nanoscopy system to supplement and significantly improve the speed of progress in our existing Army Research Office (ARO) project (W911NF- 13-1-0419 Ð PI: Dr. Ozcan), which is titled ÒUltra-wide field imaging of single nano-particles, viruses and bacteria using field-portable computational on-chip microscopy and self-assembled liquid nano-lensesÓ. In this currently existing ARO project, we utilize stable and biocompatible thin wetting films to self assemble aspheric liquid nano-lenses around individual nano-particles or other nano-objects of interests, including viruses, to be able to detect ultra-weak signatures of these sub-wavelength objects using a portable on-chip microscope. This approach, when combined with digital holography and lensfree imaging, enables us to image and detect sub-50 nm particles (i.e., smaller than À/10 Ð one tenth of the wavelength of the illumination light) using field-portable and cost-effective imaging designs, across a very large field-of-view (FOV) of >20-30 mm2, i.e., about three orders-of-magnitude larger than other nano-imaging techniques. While this wide-field computational imaging capability of our technique is very exciting, especially in a cost-effective and portable design (making it suitable for use in field settings), it also creates a significant bottleneck for comparison and validation of our results because existing lens-based nanoscopy tools, without automated scanning features, have extremely limited FOVs Ð typically less than 0.05 mm2 per image. This necessitates several hundred different optical images to be captured using a nanoscope to validate one of our self-assembly enabled lensfree reconstructed images.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Dec 04, 2018
- Source ID
- W911NF1610039
Entities
People
- Aydoğan Özcan
Organizations
- Army Contracting Command
- United States Army
- University of California, Los Angeles