As per a new study published in the journal Nature Communications, new tech can turn a conventional light microscope into a super-resolution microscope. The tech uses a specially designed material that cut shorts the wavelength of light as illuminates the sample.
This shrunken light is what actually allows the microscope to see at a higher resolution. “This material converts low-resolution light to high-resolution light,” said Zhaowei Liu of UC San Diego. “It’s very simple and easy to use. Just place a sample on the material, then put the whole thing under a normal microscope–no fancy modification needed.”
Huge leap for microscope imaging
The new technology allows conventional light microscopes to tackle a huge hurdle, i.e. low resolution. Light microscopes come in handy for imaging live cells, but they can’t see anything smaller. Normal light microscopes’ resolution is restricted to 200 nanometers, which means that any object closer to this distance is not identified as a separate object.
While electron microscopes can see subcellular structures, they aren’t capable of imaging live cells because the sample needs to be placed in a vacuum chamber. “The major challenge is finding one technology that has very high resolution and is also safe for live cells,” said Liu.
The latest technology is a blend of both these features. Using this tech, a conventional microscope can image live subcellular structures at a resolution of up to 40 nanometers.
Specially crafted microscope slide
It involves a microscope slide coated with a light-shrinking material known as a hyperbolic metamaterial. It consists of nanometer-thin alternating layers of silver and silica glass. The wavelengths cut short and scatter to produce a series of random high-res patterns when the light passes through.
When a sample is placed on the special slide, it gets illuminated in several ways by these light patterns. This results in low-res images that are first captured and then merged together using a reconstruction algorithm to produce a high-res image.
The new technology has been tested with a commercial inverted microscope. Researchers managed to capture fine features like actin filaments, in fluorescently labeled Cos-7 cells that are not possible to observe using just the microscope.
