{"id":34819,"date":"2017-02-23T18:25:25","date_gmt":"2017-02-24T02:25:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2017\/02\/spiky-nanostructures-capture-lifes-fine-details"},"modified":"2017-04-24T18:48:16","modified_gmt":"2017-04-25T01:48:16","slug":"spiky-nanostructures-capture-lifes-fine-details","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2017\/02\/spiky-nanostructures-capture-lifes-fine-details","title":{"rendered":"Spiky Nanostructures Capture Life\u2019s Fine Details"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

A new day for imaging.<\/p>\n

\n

Optical microscopes that use lenses to bounce photons off objects have trouble distinguishing nanometer-scale objects smaller than the imaging<\/a> beam\u2019s wavelength, such as proteins<\/a> and DNA<\/a>. An innovative \u2018hyperlens\u2019 designed at A* STAR<\/a> can overcome optical diffraction limits by capturing high-resolution information held by short-lived or evanescent waves<\/a> lurking near a target\u2019s surface.<\/p>\n

Hyperlens devices \u2014 composed of thin stacks of alternate metal<\/a> and plastic layers \u2014 have raised prospects for capturing living biological processes in action with high\u2013speed<\/a> optics. Key to their operation are oscillating electrons<\/a>, known as surface plasmons, that resonate with and enhance evanescent waves<\/a> that appear when photons strike a solid object. The narrow wavelengths of evanescent beams give nanoscale<\/a> resolution to images when the hyperlens propagates the images to a standard microscope.<\/p>\n

Mass-production of current hyperlenses has stalled however because of their intricate fabrication\u2014 up to 18 different layer depositions may be required, each with stringent requirements to avoid signal degradation. \u201cFor perfect imaging<\/a>, these layers need precisely controlled thickness and purity,\u201d says Linda Wu, from the A* STAR<\/a> Singapore<\/a> Institute of Manufacturing<\/a> Technology. \u201cOtherwise, it\u2019s hard to magnify the object sufficiently for a conventional microscope to pick up.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new day for imaging. Optical microscopes that use lenses to bounce photons off objects have trouble distinguishing nanometer-scale objects smaller than the imaging beam\u2019s wavelength, such as proteins and DNA. An innovative \u2018hyperlens\u2019 designed at A* STAR can overcome optical diffraction limits by capturing high-resolution information held by short-lived or evanescent waves lurking near [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":395,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-nanotechnology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/395"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34819"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34819\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48741,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34819\/revisions\/48741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}