Optical instrumentation at the Laser Biomedical Research Center is available to collaborators and to users of the resource. Each system below is listed with what it is used for and the optical configuration it runs in.
The instruments listed here support collaborative projects with groups inside and outside MIT. Enquiries about access, feasibility, or a joint study are welcome — the fastest route is to describe the measurement you have in mind and the sample you want to measure.
In vivo cellular and tissue hyperspectral Raman imaging.
A confocal Raman microscope in an inverted geometry, used to record label-free vibrational spectra from cells and tissue and to characterise the composition of biochemical samples. The inverted configuration suits samples held in dishes and on coverslips.
In-situ monitoring of specimen biochemistry, including non-invasive diagnosis of human disease.
A portable Raman spectrometer coupled to a fibre-optic probe, for measurements that cannot be brought to a microscope. The probe geometry allows spectra to be collected in situ, including from samples in their own containers or environments.
Label-free, large-area quantitative phase imaging of cellular and tissue specimens based on their refractive index distribution.
A diffraction phase microscope (DPM) for quantitative phase imaging, recovering optical path length across the sample without staining or labelling. Short-wavelength illumination and a high-numerical-aperture water-immersion objective give a lateral resolution near 250 nm across a 300 × 300 µm² field of view.
Label-free three-dimensional refractive-index tomography of live cells and tissues.
A commercial holotomographic microscope (Tomocube Inc.) that reconstructs the three-dimensional refractive-index distribution of a sample without labels, resolving subcellular structure in living cells.
Patterned two-photon excitation, applied either as a widefield multiphoton fluorescence microscope or as a three-dimensional nanofabrication platform.
A custom temporal-focusing platform built for high-throughput operation. An 800 nm femtosecond source is shaped into a line, patterned by a digital micromirror device (DMD), projected through a high-numerical-aperture objective and collected in an epi configuration. The epi path is designed for fluorescence intensity measurement and imaging; on the fabrication side, patterned two-photon excitation is being developed to expose three-dimensional photosensitive scaffolds for material assembly and controlled shrinkage through the implosion-carving (ImpCarv) workflow. The values below are expected performance for the system as designed.
Contact Prof. Peter T. C. So (ptso@mit.edu) or Dr. Jeon Woong Kang (jwkang76@mit.edu) to discuss access or a collaboration.
