Light Sheet Microscopy Optical Trap
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current light sheet fluorescence microscopy methods for recording 3D samples face issues with optical aberrations due to media interfaces and restrict long-term monitoring and imaging of mobile specimens, often requiring anaesthetics or physical constraints that can compromise sample development.
Innovation Solution
An optical system using counter-propagating beam traps, formed by a single light source reflected from a mirror, allows for contactless and undistorted trapping and positioning of samples, enabling imaging without media interfaces and allowing for movement within the trap, using independent laser wavelengths for trapping and imaging.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If gel is used to hold the specimen during mechanical scanning, then the specimen can be confined and imaged, but optical aberrations occur due to refractive index mismatch between gel and water
Solution Approach 1:
The patent removes the gel medium from the imaging system entirely, replacing it with an optical trap that confines specimens in water or physiological buffer without requiring a gel-water interface. This extraction of the problematic gel component eliminates the refractive index mismatch that causes optical aberrations.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces the mechanical scanning system with gel-based confinement with an optical trapping system using counter-propagating laser beams. This substitution eliminates the need for physical contact between specimen and gel, allowing specimens to be held and scanned optically without media interface aberrations.
2Reliability
If anaesthetics or physical constraints are used to immobilize mobile specimens, then the specimens can be imaged, but specimen development and normal functioning are compromised
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces mechanical or chemical immobilization methods with optical trapping using counter-propagating laser beams. This non-contact optical confinement allows mobile specimens like swimming microorganisms to be held in position for imaging without anaesthetics or physical constraints, maintaining their normal development and functioning.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces light fields as an intermediary between the imaging system and the specimen. The optical trap acts as a mediator that confines specimens without direct physical or chemical contact, avoiding the harmful effects of anaesthetics and mechanical constraints while still enabling stable imaging.
3Manufacturing precision
If the light sheet and detection objective are moved along the detection axis, then 3D stacks can be recorded, but the complex mechanical movement reduces imaging speed and increases system complexity
Solution Approach 1:
The patent inverts the traditional approach by keeping the light sheet and detection objective stationary while moving the specimen through the fixed imaging plane using optical trapping. This inversion eliminates the need for complex coordinated movement of multiple optical components, simplifying the system and enabling faster imaging.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces the mechanical scanning system that moves light sheets and objectives with an optical trapping system that moves specimens through a fixed imaging plane. This substitution eliminates complex mechanical coordination requirements and enables faster 3D stack acquisition.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
This approach maintains high image quality, reduces photo-damage, and enables long-term monitoring of mobile specimens without compromising their development, as it provides a contactless, contamination-free handling method that avoids optical aberrations and allows for precise movement of samples within the trap.
Implementation Method 1
An optical system uses counter-propagating beam traps, formed by a single light source reflected from a mirror, allows for contactless and undistorted trapping and positioning of samples
Implementation Method 2
uses two gently focused, counter-propagating laser beams to confine large target objects between the foci of the beams. The optical scattering force along a beam propagation direction can be balanced for confinement in this direction, with the gradient force allowing containment in the other two transverse directions
Implementation Method 3
Light sheet fluorescence microscopy or selective plane illumination microscopy uses a thin sheet of light to illuminate a sample, whilst fluorescent images are taken perpendicular to the illuminated plane
Implementation Method 4
Light sheet fluorescence microscopy or selective plane illumination microscopy uses a thin sheet of light to illuminate a sample, whilst fluorescent images are taken perpendicular to the illuminated plane
Data Source
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Figure 3a~4d
AI summary
An optical system comprising trapping optics for forming an optical trap using counter propagating beams of light and light sheet imaging optics for light sheet imaging a particle, for example a cell, that is positioned in the optical trap, wherein the wavelength of the counter propagating beams of light and the wavelength of the light used for light sheet imaging are non-interfering.