Wavelength Sensitive Optical Assembly for Fluorescence Microscopy
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current STED and GSD fluorescence light microscopy techniques face challenges in aligning de-excitation and excitation light beams coaxially, leading to high adjustment efforts and impairments in beam quality, which affect spatial resolution and imaging precision.
Innovation Solution
An optical structure where two light components pass through an optical component that phase-corrects one light component while deforming the wavefronts of the other, allowing both beams to be guided coaxially, reducing the need for relative adjustment and maintaining consistent effects on both light components.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If spatial light modulators are used to generate interference patterns for de-excitation light, then spatial resolution is improved, but beam quality is impaired
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the wavefront deformation function from the spatial light modulator and transfers it to a phase filter. The spatial light modulator is then removed from the optical path, eliminating its detrimental effects on beam quality while preserving its useful function of creating the desired interference pattern for super-resolution imaging.
Solution Approach 2:
A phase filter is introduced as an intermediary optical element that performs the wavefront deformation function. This phase filter acts as a mediator between the laser source and the sample, providing the necessary phase modulation without the beam quality degradation caused by spatial light modulators.
2Measurement precision
If de-excitation and excitation light beams are aligned coaxially, then imaging precision is improved, but adjustment effort increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges the optical paths of excitation and de-excitation light into a common path. By using a single laser source that generates both wavelengths and routing them through shared optical components including the phase filter and objective lens, the system eliminates the need for separate alignment procedures while maintaining precise coaxial alignment.
Solution Approach 2:
The phase filter and other optical components are designed to handle both excitation and de-excitation light wavelengths simultaneously. This multi-functionality allows a single optical path to serve dual purposes, eliminating the need for separate alignment mechanisms for different light beams.
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 simplifies the alignment of de-excitation and excitation light beams, maintaining beam quality and enhancing spatial resolution by ensuring consistent optical path changes for both light components, thereby improving imaging precision in fluorescence microscopy.
Implementation Method 1
the optical component deforming the wavefronts of one light component in such a way that the intensity distribution of one light component in a projection space differs from the intensity distribution of the other light component in a projection space due to interference with itself
Implementation Method 2
the intensity distribution of one light component in a projection space differs from the intensity distribution of the other light component in a projection space due to interference with itself
Data Source
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AI summary
In an optical assembly comprising a lens for projecting two optically different light components into a projection chamber and comprising an optical component that deforms one of the light components passing through the wave fronts (5) such that the intensity distribution of one of the light components in the projection chamber differs in the interference thereof from the intensity distribution of the other light components in the projection chamber, the wave fronts (15) of the other light components as well as the wave fronts (5) of one light component passes through the optical component (1 ). The optical component (1 ) does not deform the wave fronts (15) of the other light components (17) and/or is phase corrected or can be phase corrected for the other light components (17).