Originally called ‘single-beam gradient force trap’, optical tweezers are scientific instruments that use a highly focused laser beam to provide an attractive, or repulsive force, depending on the refractive index mismatch to physically hold and move microscopic dielectric objects similar to tweezers. Optical tweezers have [...]
Currently, diagnosing Alzheimer’s relies largely on documentation of any mental decline. However, when diagnosing Alzheimer’s in this way, it has already caused severe brain damage in individuals. What if we could diagnose Alzheimer’s before symptoms started? It is increasingly clear that by the time a [...]
You may have seen it on CSI: The star examines hair from a crime scene and concludes its color or texture looks like the defendant’s hair, or maybe his dog’s. Case closed. But, looks can be deceiving, as well as vague and subjective. According to [...]
Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a fundamentally new type of optical imaging modality. OCT is a non-invasive imaging test that uses light waves to take high-resolution, cross-section pictures of the retina, retinal nerve fiber layer, and the optic nerve head. OCT imaging is somewhat analogous [...]
Imaging single proteins has been a long-standing ambition for advancing various fields in natural science. For instance, structural biology, biophysics, and molecular nanotechnology. In particular, revealing the distinct conformations of an individual protein is of utmost importance. The past 20 years have witnessed the advent [...]
It’s the part of the eye exam everyone hates: the pupil-dilating eye drops. Your eyes remain blurry for several hours afterwards, often making the process inconvenient for both patient and doctor. The reason for the dilation is to keep the iris from constricting, and is [...]
Biomedical engineers at Duke University have discovered a way to detect signs of cancer on a cell-by-cell basis using a technique that involves two lasers and a camera. The technique, using biomedical lasers and cameras, can assess an individual cell’s stiffness using patterns that appear [...]
Optical imaging is a technique for non-invasively looking inside the body, as is done with x-rays. But, unlike x-rays, which use ionizing radiation, optical imaging uses visible light and the special properties of photons to obtain detailed images of organs and tissues as well as smaller structures including cells [...]
Safer lasers to map your cells could soon be in the offing – all thanks to the humble jellyfish. A combined team of researchers from Scotland and Germany has developed a way to create a polariton laser by using jellyfish proteins cultivated in E. coli cells. In their paper [...]
We support engineers from concept through prototyping and into production—ensuring each robotics vision system has optics tailored to its function.
