{"id":251524,"date":"2020-10-19T17:35:09","date_gmt":"2020-10-19T15:35:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/innovationorigins.com\/?p=251524"},"modified":"2020-10-19T17:35:09","modified_gmt":"2020-10-19T15:35:09","slug":"an-affordable-microscope-for-invisible-infrared-light","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/en\/an-affordable-microscope-for-invisible-infrared-light\/","title":{"rendered":"An affordable microscope for invisible infrared light"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Berlin-based researchers from Humboldt University,<\/a> Charit\u00e9 Hospital University, and the Max Delbr\u00fcck Center for Molecular Medicine<\/a> have for the first time succeeded in building a microscope that uses split photons to create molecular images. The German institutes are thereby building on the work of the Austrian physicist and pioneer of quantum mechanics, Anton Zeilinger<\/a>. He is also known as ‘Mr. Beam<\/em>‘ and first outlined the technique just over five years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The key to the microscope is a part of the light spectrum that is invisible. This is an infrared light that has a wavelength between 780 and 1000 nanometers. This invisible light can be used to make enhanced images at the molecular level of e.g. blood or skin samples.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We do not need that invisible light for ordinary photographs of a vacation or a wedding. But it can provide crucial information about molecular variations or transformations for biomedical research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Digital camera<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Modern cameras typically use silicon semiconductors. There are literally billions of so-called CCD (charge-coupled device<\/em>) and CMOS (complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor<\/em>) sensors, cameras, and cell phones that use this type of semiconductor. This enables light (photons) to be converted into electrical impulses (electrons) to render an image visible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"This<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

But just like the human eye, these cameras are not capable of seeing all the infrared light. The part in the middle with the above-mentioned wavelength remains invisible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are cameras that can capture these images, however, they are extremely expensive and unaffordable for most universities and institutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Visible and invisible photons<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

What the German researchers have now done is to more or less split the photons into two As in, a visible and an invisible part. They use a laser and a non-linear crystal in order to do this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The laser can be configured in such a way that the crystal only lets through the invisible light or both types of light. This is directed at a sample that is to be examined. The reflected light is then captured by a camera and produces several different types of molecular images.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The researchers still need to advance the technique further, but the hope and expectations are that they will be able to build a commercial microscope for this invisible light in the not too distant future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Berlin-based researchers from Humboldt University, Charit\u00e9 Hospital University, and the Max Delbr\u00fcck Center for Molecular Medicine have for the first time succeeded in building a microscope that uses split photons to create molecular images. The German institutes are thereby building on the work of the Austrian physicist and pioneer of quantum mechanics, Anton Zeilinger. He […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1723,"featured_media":518013,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[34665],"tags":[31435,7421,54598,27509],"location":[],"article_type":[],"serie":[],"archives":[],"internal_archives":[],"reboot-archive":[],"class_list":["post-251524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","tag-charite-en","tag-humboldt-en","tag-humboldt-universitat-berlin","tag-newsletter-en"],"blocksy_meta":[],"acf":{"subtitle":"A group of researchers from Berlin has developed a new kind of photon microscope that can be of great value to microbiology.","text_display_homepage":false},"author_meta":{"display_name":"Maurits Kuypers","author_link":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/author\/maurits-kuypers\/"},"featured_img":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/it18i4rs-F1.large_-300x190.jpg","coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["Health<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Health<\/span>"]},"tags":{"linked":["Charit\u00e9<\/a>","Humboldt<\/a>","Humboldt-Universit\u00e4t Berlin<\/a>","Newsletter<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Charit\u00e9<\/span>","Humboldt<\/span>","Humboldt-Universit\u00e4t Berlin<\/span>","Newsletter<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":"0","relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 5 years ago","modified":"Updated 5 years ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on October 19, 2020","modified":"Updated on October 19, 2020"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on October 19, 2020 5:35 pm","modified":"Updated on October 19, 2020 5:35 pm"},"featured_img_caption":"","series_order":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1723"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251524\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/518013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251524"},{"taxonomy":"location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location?post=251524"},{"taxonomy":"article_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article_type?post=251524"},{"taxonomy":"serie","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/serie?post=251524"},{"taxonomy":"archives","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/archives?post=251524"},{"taxonomy":"internal_archives","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/internal_archives?post=251524"},{"taxonomy":"reboot-archive","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/reboot-archive?post=251524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}