Olympus Optical Company, Ltd.

Olympus Corporation

Japan Science and Technology Agency

Nippon Roper Kk

Other

Hamamatsu-photonics K.k.

The University of Tokyo

Tokyo Institute of Technology

Japan Science and Technology Corporation

Research Development Corporation of Japan

University of Tsukuba

Research Development Corporation

Nippon Roper Co., Ltd.

Yoshinori Iketaki

Masaaki Fujii

Yoshiaki Horikawa

Komei Nagai

Toshio Suzuki

Takeshi Watanabe

Shoichiro Mochimaru

Takashige Omatsu

Kimihisa Yamamoto

Mikiko Kato

Osamu Sato

Yasunori Igasaki

Shingo Kashima

Eiji Yokoi

Hideaki Kano

Koumei Nagai

Mashaaki Fujii

Takeshige Omatsu

Hideaki Kanou

Nandor Bokor

Kimiyoshi Yamamoto

A super-resolution microscope includes an illuminator and a detector. The illuminator irradiates illumination beams of different wavelengths through an objective lens onto a sample while causing at least a portion of the illumination beams to overlap spatially and temporally. The detector detects a signal beam generated by the sample as a result of irradiation of the sample with the illumination beams. The illumination beams include a first illumination beam that induces a first nonlinear optical process with respect to the sample and a second illumination beam that induces a second nonlinear optical process that suppresses the first nonlinear optical process. The nonlinear susceptibility of the second nonlinear optical process is greater than the nonlinear susceptibility of the first nonlinear optical process.

Super-resolution microscope

A super-resolution microscope includes a modulation optical element () that is disposed in an illumination optical system along a light path traveled by first illumination light and second illumination light and spatially modulates the second illumination light. In the modulation optical element (), a plurality of optical substrates exhibiting anisotropy in a refractive index distribution are joined in a coplanar manner, and at least two of the optical substrates have a different refractive index with respect to a polarization direction of the second illumination light.

Super-resolution microscope and modulation optical element

A super-resolution microscope comprises: an illumination optical system that condenses a first illumination light beam for exciting the molecule from a stable state to a first quantum state and a second illumination light beam for further transitioning the molecule onto a sample in a manner that the first and the second illumination light beams are partially overlapped; a scanning section that scans the sample by relatively displacing the first and the second illumination light beams and the sample; a detection section that detects an optical response signal emitted from the sample; and a phase plate that is arranged in the illumination optical system and has M surface areas for modulating the phase of the second illumination light beam, wherein the phase plate comprises a monolayer optical thin film with M surface areas formed on an optical substrate with a thickness that satisfies the predetermined conditional expression.

Provided is a nonlinear optical microscope capable of improving the spatial resolution. The nonlinear optical microscope includes: an illuminating part for irradiating, through an objective lens, a sample with at least two colors of illumination light beams spatially and temporally overlapping each other; and a detecting part for detecting signal light generated from the sample due to nonlinear optical effect, the signal light resulting from the irradiation of the sample with the at least two colors of illumination light beams, in which the illuminating part irradiates the sample with the two colors of illumination light beams in which at least one of the illumination light beams has a wavefront distribution different from a wavefront distribution of the other one of the illumination light beams.

Nonlinear optical microscope and nonlinear optical microscopy

A microscope capable of forming a beam spot in a desired shape on a focal plane is provided. The microscope is provided with a modulation optical element () having a plurality of regions for spatial modulation of illumination light and an adjustment element () for adjusting an optical property of the illumination light modulated by the modulation optical element.

Ultra-high resolution microscope

Provided is a super-resolution microscope for observing a specimen containing a substance having two or more excited quantum state, which includes: a light source section that outputs a first illumination light for exciting the substance from a stable state to a first quantum state, and a second illumination light for further transitioning the substance to other quantum state; an optical system including a microscope objective lens and condensing the first illumination light and the second illumination light, each outputted from the light source section, onto the specimen in a manner that these lights are partially overlapped with each other; a detection section that detects an optical response signal emitted from the specimen in response to condensing of the first illumination light and the second illumination light; and, a polarization controlling element provided with a polarizing member that converts a polarization state of the first illumination light or the second illumination light, and a phase modulation section integrally formed with the polarizing member and spatially modulating a phase of the second illumination light.

The present invention provides an optical microscope capable of suppressing unnecessary response light as a background and detecting desired response light in nonlinear optical response process with a good S/N ratio. The optical microscope for collecting, on a sample, stimulation light emitted from a stimulation light sourceand having a single wavelength or a plurality of different wavelengths, and detecting response light emitted from the samplein nonlinear optical response process, comprises: an erase light sourcefor emitting erase light having a wavelength different from that of the stimulation light and inducing an effect of suppressing secondary response light which appears due to irradiation of the stimulation light on the sample, wherein the erase light and the stimulation light are simultaneously irradiated on the samplesuch that the erase light does not suppress response light emitted from a light-collecting area of the stimulation light but suppresses the secondary response light other than the response light emitted from a light-collecting area of the stimulation light.

Optical microscope configured to simultaneously irradiate the erase light and the stimulation light

The present invention provides a microscopy method and a microscope, which enable microscopic observation of desired information of a specimen with an extremely high S/N ratio in a short period of time without increasing intensity of a light sources. The method of the invention is characterized in that it comprises: a simultaneous irradiation step of irradiating a specimen with first and second electromagnetic rays having different wave length with the rays overlapping at least partly each other; and a simultaneous irradiation visualization step of visualizing a spatial distribution of a refractive index variation caused by the irradiation of the first electromagnetic ray as a phase contrast image of the second electromagnetic ray having passed through the specimen in the region of the specimen to which the overlapped the first and the second electromagnetic rays are irradiated.

Microscopy method and microscope

A super-resolution microscope includes an optical system for combining a part of a first coherent light from a first light source and a part of a second coherent light from a second light source and focusing the coherent lights onto a sample, scanning , unit for scanning the coherent lights, and a detecting unit for detecting an optical response signal from the sample. The microscope is configured so as to satisfy the following conditions:&#x3c3;Ip&#x3c4;&#x2266;1, and0.65(&#x3bb;)&#x2266;&#x3c4;&#x3c3;

A three-dimensional analyzing device includes a first beam source for generating a first beam, a second beam source for generating a second beam, an optical system for spatially overlapping the first and second beams at least partly and irradiating the beams onto a specimen to three-dimensionally confine a photoactive region in a specimen, and a photo acceptance element for accepting a response light emitted from the photoactive region. Preferably, the device further includes an operation unit for calculating a correlation function of a response light in the time domain based on the output of the photo acceptance element to analyze a desired physical value of the specimen.

Three dimensional analyzing device

A microscope capable of being shaped into a beam with complete hollow shape by removing the disorder of the wavefront to the erase light, particularly, and capable of improving the spatial resolution by inducing a super-resolution near the limit, is provided. In the microscope, wherein a first light to excite a molecule from a ground-state to first electron excited state or a second light to excite the molecule from the first electron excited state to the second electron excited state with higher energy level, for a sampleincluding the molecule with three electronic states including at least a ground-state, are spatial phase-modulated into the prescribed beam shape, and parts of these first light and the second light are overlapped and focused to detect luminescence from the sample, a wavefront compensation meansis provided in the optical path of the first light and/or in the optical path of the second light, and the wavefront aberration caused in the first light and/or in the second light, is removed by the wavefront compensation means

Microscope with wavelength compensation

A microscope includes a first light source to emit a first light to excite a molecule of a sample to a higher energy level vibration state which belongs to a lowest energy level electron state from the ground state, a second light source to emit a second light source to excite the molecule to a higher energy level quantum state from the higher energy vibration state, an optical system to overlap the first light and the second light partially on the sample, and an optical detector to detect a given fluorescence from the irradiated region of the first light and the second light on the sample.

Super resolution microscope

The present invention provides various embodiments of a double-resonance-absorption microscope which realizes a super-resolution by using double resonance absorption. In particular, a double-resonance-absorption microscope includes a light source for a pump light of a wavelength &#x3bb;which excites a sample molecule to a first electronic excited state from a ground state, a light source for an erase light of a wavelength &#x3bb;which excites the sample molecule to a second electronic excited state or a higher excited state from the first electronic excited state, and an overlap component for partially overlapping irradiating areas of the pump light and the erase light with each other. An emission area upon deexcitation of the sample molecule to the ground state from the first electronic excited state is partially inhibited by irradiating the pump light and the erase light through the overlap means. On an optical path of the erase light, a spatial filter is provided which has a condenser lens, a collimate lens, and a pinhole therebetween, and performs condensing of the erase light onto the pinhole by the condenser lens and collimating of the erase light passed through the pinhole into a parallel beam by the collimate lens.

Double-resonance-absorption microscope

A microscope system comprising an adjusted specimen and a microscope body, wherein the adjusted specimen is dyed with molecule which has three electronic states including at least a ground state and in which an excited wavelength band from the first electron excited state to the second electron excited state overlaps a fluorescent wavelength band upon deexcitation through a fluorescence process from the first electron excited state to a vibrational level in the ground state. There is provided a novel microscope system which is enabled to condense an erase light for exciting a molecule in the first electron excited state to the second electron excited state in an excellent beam profile by using a simple, compact optical system and which has high stability and operability and an excellent super-resolution.

Super-resolution microscope system and method for illumination

An optical device and microscope of simple construction are provided that are capable of readily attaining super resolution with good focusing performance. This comprises a light source means ( ) that generates light of multiple different wavelengths, a light condensation means to focus lights of these multiple wavelengths on an object , and an emitted light detector means for detection of light emitted from said object . Among said multiple lights of different wavelengths generated from said light source means, at least one light forms a condensed light pattern of multiple spatial modes. These multiple lights are condensed upon said object such that part of the region of the condensed light pattern of said multiple spatial modes is made to spatially overlap with the condensed light pattern of the other light.

Growing community of inventors

Oume, Japan

Yoshinori Iketaki