STTR Phase I: Time-Resolved High Resolution Infrared Microscope

这个小型企业技术转移第一阶段项目将开发一种用于细胞生物化学应用的时间分辨率高分辨率扫描红外显微镜。该显微镜将能够在亚皮秒时间分辨率的中红外中获得亚微米分辨率的图像，并将提供现有光学成像技术目前无法提供的能力。红细胞将被用作模型系统，以展示新仪器在各种时间尺度上获得200纳米分辨率、5微米波长的红外图像的能力。以亚细胞分辨率研究细胞中的化学和物理事件的能力，对于理解疾病的分子方面以及生物医学诊断和治疗的发展非常重要。该仪器在半导体和聚合物材料科学中也有应用。在生物和材料科学中，先进的光学成像技术的应用正在增长。这项技术的商业应用的例子包括对制药和生物技术公司感兴趣的细胞和器官中的化学和结构事件的成像，对半导体和光导聚合物中的载流子动力学的时间分辨成像，以及用于先进材料设计的化学活性纳米结构的成像。

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.