Sep 20 2007
Three adaptive optics technologies available from Imagine Optic have been packaged together into a kit targeted at bioimaging applications.
The AOKit-bio has been developed to provide image precision to biologists using both multi-photon and confocal microscopes. "Distortions in biological systems can be extensive and fast-moving," Mark Zacharria of Imagine Optic told optics.org. "Adaptive optics technologies to deal with them have been applied before, in ophthalmology applications for example. But the ability to put them into practice efficiently in bioscience microscopy is new."
Adoption of the AOKit-bio could lead to more precise deep tissue images in a variety of diagnostic applications, such as the earlier detection of cancers. Researchers at the University of California San Francisco have already begun to use the kit for improved microscopic imaging, and have employed it in developing a new microscope.
The products included in the AOKit-bio consist of:
- The HASO3 wavefront sensor, a Shack-Hartmann sensor to measure and analyse an incoming wavefront.
- The mirao-52d electromagnetic deformable mirror, enabling correction for specimen-induced aberrations in microscopic images.
- CASAO, a software interface allowing users to control the HASO3 and mirao-52d.
Adaptive optics applications in bioimaging are predicted to grow in the future as the technique becomes widely accepted, a process that has now started with the AOKit-bio, Zacharria says. "Other similar systems are coming to market, but they are slower than AOKit. This combination of technologies is unique. There's nothing on the market like it at present, and nothing coming in the foreseeable future to match it."