A major challenge in nanotechnology is the fabrication of complex three-dimensional (3D) structures with desired materials. We present a strategy for fabricating arbitrary 3D nanostructures with a library of materials including metals, metal alloys, 2D materials, oxides, diamond, upconversion materials, semiconductors, polymers, biomaterials, molecular crystals, and inks. Specifically, hydrogels patterned by femtosecond light sheets are used as templates that allow for direct assembly of materials to form designed nanostructures. By fine-tuning the exposure strategy and features of the patterned gel, 2D and 3D structures of 20- to 200-nm resolution are realized. We fabricated nanodevices, including encrypted optical storage and microelectrodes, to demonstrate their designed functionality and precision. These results show that our method provides a systematic solution for nanofabrication across different classes of materials and opens up further possibilities for the design of sophisticated nanodevices.
In this Letter, we present a holography-based structured light illumination (SLI) method to enhance the resolution of widefield temporal focusing microscopy (TFM). In the system, a digital micromirror device is employed to simultaneously disperse the incoming femtosecond laser to induce temporal focusing at the focal plane and generate designed structured patterns via a Lee hologram. As the generated structured patterns do not contain the zeroth order beam, it improves the contrast and modulation frequency. Mathematical models have been derived to calculate the electric fields at the focal plane and to explain the effects of improved optical cross-sectioning capability. Imaging experiments have been devised and performed on fluorescent beads and mouse kidney sections; the results demonstrate enhanced axial confinement and improved suppression of out-of-focus fluorescence. The new SLI method realizes high-resolution TFM and can be readily applied to other microscopy platforms for biophotonics applications.
We present the modular design and characterization of a multi-modality video-rate two-photon excitation (TPE) microscope based on integrating a digital micromirror device (DMD), which functions as an ultrafast beam shaper and random-access scanner, with a pair of galvanometric scanners. The TPE microscope system realizes a suite of new imaging functionalities, including (1) multi-layer imaging with 3D programmable imaging planes, (2) DMD-based wavefront correction, and (3) multi-focus optical stimulation (up to 22.7 kHz) with simultaneous TPE imaging, all in real-time. We also report the detailed optomechanical design and software development that achieves high level system automation. To verify the performance of different microscope functions, we have devised and performed imaging experiments on Drosophila brain, mouse kidney and human stem cells. The results not only show improved imaging resolution and depths via the DMD-based adaptive optics, but also demonstrate fast multi-focus stimulation for the first time. With the new imaging capabilities, e.g., tools for optogenetics, the multi-modality TPE microscope may play a critical role in the applications pertinent to neuroscience and biophotonics.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.