Multicore Fiber Cell Laser with Stretching Capabilities

Abstract

The invention provides a multi-core fiber cell laser system with stretching function. The "fiber-cell" laser is mainly composed of the following four parts: (1) a multi-core optical fiber with a new structure, the fiber end is polished into a rotationally symmetrical double-angle cone-conical frustoconical shape, and is prepared into a fiber optical tweezers; (2) A miniature optical resonant cavity, the inside of which is a gain medium for optical amplification; (3) A light source that can capture photodynamic forces for cells and an excitation light source for the gain medium; (4) A detection spectrometer for cell output laser light. The output spectrum of the microsphere optical resonant cavity inside the cell is very sensitive to the slight changes of the environmental physical parameters such as the cytosol inside the cell, and can be measured through the amplified laser signal output by the multi-core cone fiber. The invention can be used for single cell capture and cell laser spectrum measurement, and can be widely used in the technical fields of single cell manipulation, sensing, measurement and analysis.

Description

(1) Technical field [0001] The invention relates to a multi-core optical fiber cell laser system with a stretching function, which can be used for cell capture, cell laser spectrum measurement and cell laser self-assembly, and is especially suitable for the technical fields of single cell manipulation, measurement and analysis. (2) Background technology [0002] In 1960, American scientist T.H. Maiman and others successfully created the world's first ruby ​​crystal laser. In 1961, A. Jia Wen and others successfully developed a helium-neon laser. In 1962, R.N. Hall and others developed a gallium arsenide semiconductor laser. . The birth of lasers marks that people have the ability to control the emission direction, phase, frequency and polarization of multiple photons, which makes people's understanding and application of light reach a higher level. Lasers have shown unimaginable application value in the direction of miniaturization and interdisciplinary, so the field of opt...

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Problems solved by technology

[0004] In June 2001, Gather et al. from Harvard University enabled human embryonic kidney cells to emit laser signals (NATUREPHOTONICS, Single-cell biological lasers, 2011, 5:406-410). The excitation light source in the device needs to be focused by the image magnification system. The light spot is reduced to the size of a single cell, and a Fabry-Perot resonant cavity with a space slightly larger than the cell size is bonded by two high-reflection mirrors to limit the cells in the position of the excitation light, so the device is bulky. The direction and position of the spatial excitation light are inconvenient to adjust single cells, and the cells can only be captured by means of external space constraints.

In 2015, Humar et al. from Harvard Medical School developed a variety of cell lasers based on whispering gallery mode microcavities (NATURE PHOTONICS, Intracellular microlasers, 2015, 9:572-576), which proved that it can also be realized in natural cells For laser output, a regular circular lipid droplet is artificially embedded in the cell as a whispering gallery mode, and the output signal is coupled to the spectral detector through a multimode optical fiber with a core diameter of 200 μm, but the device is large in size, and the optical fiber used to receive the signal Thicker, due to the inability to accurately capture cells and other micro-manipulation functions, the operation of irradiating the cells with the excitation beam becomes inaccurate, and the small displacement of the cells in the liquid will cause the excitation beam to be unable to be accurately coupled into the lipid droplets, making the gain signal It cannot be continuously enhanced, and it also increases the difficulty of the operation of the experiment

[0006] The invention patent with the patent number CN201510295509.8 proposes a tunable liquid cell laser. In this patent, two optical fiber optical tweezers are required to capture the cells at the same time, and the optical fiber at one end is output to receive the optical fiber at the other end to collect signal light. ; The invention patent with the patent number CN201510267391.8 proposes a droplet whispering gallery mode laser and its manufacturing method. In this patent, the input light needs to be coupled into the ring core by means of single-mode fiber and ring core fiber fusion tapering. Droplets also need to be in contact with micro-nano optical fibers to transmit signal light; the invention patent with the patent number CN201510271055.0 proposes a multi-wavelength droplet laser. In this patent, multiple droplets need to be excited and detected. The same as the previous patent, each drop needs to be in contact with a micro-nano fiber for output. This method undoubtedly increases the difficulty of the device. As we all know, the size of the micro-nano fiber is only a few microns, and it is extremely susceptible to the influence of the external environment. And it is difficult to keep the surface of the optical fiber clean for a long time, and the patent requires multiple liquid droplets to be arranged linearly, which means that multiple micro-nano optical fibers are required to be linearly distributed. Due to the small size of the liquid droplets, this also affects the experimental operation. made extremely high demands

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