The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jan. 04, 2011
Filed:
Sep. 17, 2007
Applicant:
Ian Mcnulty, Plainfield, IL (US);
Inventor:
Ian McNulty, Plainfield, IL (US);
Assignee:
U Chicago Argonne, LLC, Chicago, IL (US);
Attorney:
Primary Examiner:
Int. Cl.
CPC ...
G02B 21/00 (2006.01);
U.S. Cl.
CPC ...
Abstract
A method and objective apparatus are provided for implementing an enhanced phase contrast microscope. A focusing vortex lens, defined by a diffractive spiral zone plate (SZP) lens, is used for the objective for the phase contrast microscope. The SZP lens focuses and imparts a helical phase to incident illumination to image the specimen with spiral phase contrast. The spiral phase contrast microscope is sensitive to phase gradients in all sample axes. Replacing the objective of a microscope with the diffractive SZP lens of the invention immediately provides existing instruments with spiral phase contrast capability.