STTR Phase I: Time-Resolved High Resolution Infrared Microscope

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This Small Business Technology Transfer Phase I Project will develop a time-resolved high resolution scanning infrared microscope for applications in cellular biochemistry. The microscope will be able to obtain images at sub-micrometer resolution in the mid-infrared with sub-picosecond time resolution and will offer capabilities not currently available from existing optical imaging techniques. Red blood cells will be used as a model system to demonstrate the ability of the new instrument to obtain infrared images at a resolution 200 nanometers at a wavelength of 5 micrometers over a variety of timescales. The ability to study chemical and physical events in cells, with sub-cellular resolution, is important in understanding the molecular aspects of diseases and to the development of biomedical diagnostics and treatments. This instrument also has applications in semiconductor and polymer materials science. Applications for advanced optical imaging techniques are growing in the biological and material sciences. Examples of commercial applications of this technique are imaging of chemical and structural events in cells and organs that are of interest to pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, time-resolved imaging of carrier dynamics in semiconductors and photoconductive polymers, and imaging of chemically active nanostructures for advanced material design.