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UCLA researchers have redefined the concept of a microscope by removing the lens to create a system that is small enough to fit in the palm of a hand but powerful enough to create three-dimensional tomographic images of miniscule samples.
The advance, featured this week in the early online edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, represents the first demonstration of lens-free optical tomographic imaging on a chip, a technique capable of producing high-resolution 3-D images of large volumes of microscopic objects.
"This research clearly shows the potential of lens-free computational microscopy," said Aydogan Ozcan, senior author of the research and an associate professor of electrical engineering at UCLA's Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science. "Wonderful progress has been made in recent years to miniaturize life-sciences tools with microfluidic and lab-on-a-chip technologies, but until now optical microscopy has not kept pace with the miniaturization trend."
An optical imaging system small enough to fit onto an opto-electronic chip provides a variety of benefits. Because of the automation involved in on-chip systems, scientific work could be sped up significantly, which might have a great impact in the fields of cell and developmental biology. In addition, the small size not only has great potential for miniaturizing systems but also leads to cost savings on equipment.
The optical microscope, invented more than 400 years ago, has tended to grow larger and more complex as it has been modified to image ever-smaller objects with better resolution. To address this lack of progress in miniaturization, Ozcan's research group with graduate student Serhan Isikman and postdoctoral scholar Waheb Bishara as lead researchers developed the new tomographic microscopy platform through the next evolution of a lens-free imaging technology the group created and has been improvi
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| Contact: Mike Rodewald mrodewald@cnsi.ucla.edu 310-267-5883 University of California - Los Angeles Source:Eurekalert |
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