Light beams hosting Orbital Angular Momentum (OAM), also known as optical vortices (OV), have led to fascinating new developments in fields ranging from quantum communication to novel light–matter interaction aspects. The characterization was easily and precisely established using a HASO4 FIRST wavefront sensor in the infrared bandwidth and Waveview wavefront sensing metrology software. 

Should you like to know more about this application and our line of Wavefront Sensors and Optical Metrology Systems, you can reach us at sales@imagine-optic.com or through the contact form (red enveloppe on the side).

Download the paper here: https://doi.org/10.3390/s22010132

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The group of Siegfried Musser from Texas AM University recently published an article in Nature Cell Biology where they used a MIRAO 52E deformable mirror to perform nuclear pore complex imaging using adaptive optics in super resolution. Super resolution microscopy techniques, such as PALM and STORM, open the possibility to visualize the smallest intracellular components, lying well beyond the diffraction limit of light and which are not otherwise accessible using conventional fluorescence microscopy methods. One of such small intracellular structures, is a nuclear pore complex (NPC). Embedded in the nucleus membrane NPCs are massive multiprotein complexes that act as passageways for the transport of molecules into and out of the nucleus. With a molecular mass of 125 MDa in vertebrates, the NPC is one of the largest and most complex protein structures of eukaryotic cells and yet is still smaller than diffraction limit.

Breaking the diffraction limit

While numerous 3D light microscopy methods have been developed over the last few decades, single-molecule astigmatism imaging provides the highest spatial localization precision in X, Y and Z, and its useful Z-range matches well to that necessary to monitor cargo trafficking through NPCs. Although the simplest approach to achieve astigmatism imaging is via a cylindrical lens, here researchers used MIRAO 52E deformable mirror both to correct sample-induced aberrations and to add a small amount of astigmatism for 3D imaging. This way they demonstrated exceptional-quality calibration curves which ensured the highest localization precision in Z.  

Even though here researchers decided to implement standalone adaptive optics components, the same results could be obtained using MICAO 3DSR – a plug & play adaptive optics system from Imagine Optic. This device is compatible with any inverted-frame microscope and our MICAO 3DSR offer automatically includes installation services and long-term support in order to create a hassle-free experience for our customers.

If you’re interested in finding out more about our line of Microscopy and Adaptive Optics solutions, you can reach us at sales@imagine-optic.com or through the contact form (red enveloppe on the side).

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If you’re interested in finding out more about our line of Wavefront Sensors and Deformable Mirrors or Adative Optics solutions for Microscopy, you can reach us at sales@imagine-optic.com or through the contact form (red enveloppe on the side).

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This version of WaveSuite is a landmark for metrology and Adaptive Optics software, bringing huge benefits to our clients and users and synchronizing the version numbering of the three softwares:
– Waveview 4.3, the bench mark in wavefront metrology
– Wavetune 4.3, for perfect loop control
– Wavekit 4.3, a versatile and comprehensive SDK in C, LabVIEW and Python.

The first benefit is the end of the 4 GB RAM limit, allowing virtually unlimited image buffers and/or up to 4x phase point measurement at full speed. All applications’ performance will benefit from this breakthrough, especially those involving high-frequency/high-resolution sampling.

The second major benefit is to processing speed, with computing speed up 3x allowing for quicker calculations of wavefronts, intensity, PSF, MTF, and most importantly the LIFT algorithms that power our new HASO LIFT series with 272 x 200 and 680 x 500 phase point sampling.

Last but not least, the M2 function returns, thanks to these memory and speed improvements with better than laser beam simulations.

WaveSuite4.3 is the version currently being delivered with new wavefront sensors, optical metrology systems and deformable mirrors. It will soon be available as an upgrade for compatible hardware. If you would like more information, please get in touch with us at sales@imagine-optic.com.

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In order to circumvent this limitation and to enable dual-view, high-resolution light-sheet imaging, a team of researchers from Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (Germany), NIH and HHMI Janelia Research Campus (USA) recently proposed the use of adaptive optics to get rid of system aberrations (full publication here). Thanks to a smart symmetrical design and division of optical paths, aberrations can be corrected in both imaging paths using a single deformable mirror and sensorless iterative algorithms.

For all adaptive optics setups based on sensorless algorithms, a key performance requirement is the linearity of the phase modulator. The proposed method benefits greatly from the almost perfect linearity of the MIRA0 52E electromagnetic deformable mirror, as well as from its high dynamic range and intrinsic achromaticity when compared to most other phase modulators. If a particular mirror shape has to be kept for long-term imaging experiments, a specific version of MIRAO is also available, providing a stable shape within a few nm for hours (see MIRAO 52es).

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Recent innovations are stretching these limits. A publication in Nature Communications by the group of Lukas Kapitein from Utrecht University reports successful application of a novel merit function based on a Fourier transform of raw images, which, therefore, does not depend on the intensity and location of detections in every frame. Their method, which is called REALM, allows direct use of the “blinking images” of the PALM/STORM technique and permits detection of aberrations on the fly. The authors need as little as about 300 frames to detect aberrations, apply the correction using a deformable mirror and then acquire the PALM/STORM sequence using a perfect PSF. By correcting aberrations, in particular in depth, the number of counts per frame is demonstrated to be increased by a factor of at least 4, due to the restoration of the PSF quality.

Lukas Kapitein’s group is one of the leading teams in the world studying the cytoskeleton of neurons. They use several innovative research methods to understand the mechanisms by which cells establish and maintain their precise shape and intracellular organization. Their REALM technique in particular was made possible thanks to our MicAO 3DSR adaptive optics add-on for super resolution PALM/STORM systems. The method opens the door to deep SMLM in tissue with unprecedented 3D resolution.  For even more information about the method, (re)watch the webinar organized by Imagine Optic and presented by Marijn Siemons, PhD student in Lukas’s group, (and including a live demo!).

If you’re interested in finding out more about our AO solutions for Microscopy, you can reach us at sales@imagine-optic.com or through the contact form (red enveloppe on the side).

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Founded in December 1996 by the pair of Samuel Bucourt and Xavier Levecq, Imagine Optic is a pioneer in the manufacturing of optical metrology instruments and systems based on the Shack Hartmann wavefront measurement method. This is how the story of the company is usually written, however some facets of history are easily masked or forgotten with time…

This series of articles will allow you to (re)discover the evolution of the commercialized products by Imagine Optic since its creation. Today, we focus on the H-Line, the forefather of our current family of HASO wavefront sensors. As introduced in our first article, the H-Line is derived from the PH-Line but functions as a standalone optical metrology sensor. Based on the Shack-Hartmann technology with a linear CCD, it was able to measure tilts, curvature and spherical aberration. It was a very competitive alternative to a wave-surface instrument, as rectangular CCD cameras were incredibly expensive back in 1997 (~10,000€, compared to a few hundred euros today).

This design allowed to have a huge amplitude of measurement (more than 10,000 λ) on collimated or very divergent/convergent beams, while maintaining the same λ/75 RMS absolute accuracy. One of its other advantages was the speed: because there was only a single line to measure, the frequency of acquisition was faster than 300 Hz in its standard version, which was outstanding for 1997, enabling users to adjust their setup in real time.
The development of the H-Line product lasted five years, during which Imagine Optic had the opportunity to establish comprehensive calibration processes for the instrument in order to reach unparalleled performances for this time. This R&D period was used to get a lot of knowledge and know-how in the manufacturing of wavefront sensors by discovering and addressing problems early on. These calibration methods continue to be used today for the production of every wavefront sensor we manufacture, more than twenty years later.

Once the first H-Line sensors were delivered, the first customers soon asked if it was possible to measure other aberration shapes, such as astigmatisms. The first solution of Imagine Optic was to apply a 90-degree rotation of the sensor in order to have two crossing lines to be able to obtain 21 of the first 36 Zernike polynomials, or a 45-degree rotation to obtain 32 of the first 36 polynomials. A second version of the H-Line was subsequently developed to directly incorporate two orthogonal CCD lines (and microlens lines) permitting the direct measurement of astigmatisms and coma. With this development the “H-Line 2D” was born.

The logical progression for the H-line was to replace linear measurements by measurements on a complete surface. The early 2000s saw a major reduction in price for rectangular CCD sensors which in turned facilitated the development of the “HASO” wavefront sensor, first manufactured in 1999, which implemented a rectangular CCD.

If you’re interested in finding out more about our line of Wavefront Sensors and Optical Metrology Systems, you can reach us at sales@imagine-optic.com or through the contact form (red enveloppe on the side).

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