Seeing Transparent Biology with Subnanometer Accuracy

Our lab develops new interferometric phase microscopy (IPM) methods that are able to image transparent and semi-transparent biological samples in a non-contact manner, while being able to track subnanometer optical thickness changes quantitatively in thousands of frames per second, and with a minimal level of noise. These techniques provide powerful tools for biological research, medical diagnosis and material science.

Thickness profile of red blood cells obtained by wide-field IPM under 40x magnification, demonstrating the valuable quantitative morphological data that can be obtained by this technique in a single exposure, without any type of sample preparation or labelling, and with a low level of spatial and temporal noise.