Leica Microsystems Acquires ATTO-TEC

Leica Microsystems has acquired ATTO-TEC GmbH, a specialty supplier of fluorescent dyes and reagents. The addition of dyes and reagents for sample preparation complements the Leica portfolio of microscopy imaging platforms and advanced AI-based analysis software.

TTO-TEC’s dyes, antibody labeling kits, labeled phospholipids, and other reagents are used in fluorescence microscopy imaging and can be a key advantage for reliable results, such as in high-plex 3D experiments in cancer research, according to Annette Rinck, president of Leica Microsystems.

The acquisition is expected to provide ATTO-TEC with additional resources to aid in future developments of the product portfolio. “Direct access to knowledge of subsequent imaging and analysis steps leads to new approaches in developing assays, kits, and dyes optimized for the entire workflow,” said Jörg Reichwein, CEO of ATTO-TEC.

According to a press release from Leica Microsystems, ATTO-TEC products will remain available through its existing online store and commercial partners.
 
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Chip-size Amplifier Increases Data Transmission Tenfold

A research team from Chalmers University of Technology has introduced a new amplifier that allows the transmission of ten times more data per second than those in current fiber optic systems. The amplifier, which fits on a small chip, holds potential for various critical laser systems, including those used in medical diagnostics and treatment.

To ensure that information maintains a high quality and is not overwhelmed by noise, optical amplifiers are essential. The data transmission capacity of an optical communication system is largely determined by the amplifier's bandwidth, which refers to the range of light wavelengths it can handle.

“The amplifiers currently used in optical communication systems have a bandwidth of approximately 30 nanometers. Our amplifier, however, boasts a bandwidth of 300 nanometers, enabling it to transmit ten times more data per second than those of existing systems,” said lead author and professor of photonics Peter Andrekson.

The new amplifier, made of silicon nitride, features several small, spiral-shaped, interconnected waveguides that efficiently direct light with minimal loss. By combining this material with an optimized geometric design, several technical advantages have been achieved.

“The key innovation of this amplifier is its ability to increase bandwidth tenfold while reducing noise more effectively than any other type of amplifier. This capability allows it to amplify very weak signals, such as those used in space communication,” said Andrekson.

Additionally, the researchers have successfully miniaturized the system to fit on a chip just a few centimeters in size.

“While building amplifiers on small chips is not a new concept, this is the first instance of achieving such a large bandwidth,” said Andrekson.

The researchers have integrated multiple amplifiers onto the chip, allowing the concept to be easily scaled up as needed. Since optical amplifiers are crucial components in all lasers, the Chalmers researchers’ design can be used to develop laser systems capable of rapidly changing wavelengths over a wide range. According to the researchers, the innovation opens up numerous applications in society.

“Minor adjustments to the design would enable the amplification of visible and infrared light as well. This means the amplifier could be utilized in laser systems for medical diagnostics, analysis, and treatment. A large bandwidth allows for more precise analyses and imaging of tissues and organs, facilitating earlier detection of diseases,” said Andrekson.

In addition to its broad application potential, the amplifier can also help make laser systems smaller and more affordable.

“This amplifier offers a scalable solution for lasers, enabling them to operate at various wavelengths while being more cost-effective, compact, and energy efficient. Consequently, a single laser system based on this amplifier could be utilized across multiple fields. Beyond medical research, diagnostics, and treatment, it could also be applied in imaging, holography, spectroscopy, microscopy, and material and component characterization at entirely different wavelengths,” said Andrekson.

Light at different wavelengths serves various applications. The researchers have demonstrated that the amplifier functions effectively within the optical communication spectrum, ranging from 1400 to 1700 nm. With its extensive bandwidth of 300 nm, the amplifier can potentially be adapted for use at other wavelengths.

By modifying the waveguide design, it is possible to amplify signals in other ranges, such as visible light (400 to 700 nm) and infrared light (2000 to 4000 nm). Consequently, in the long term, the amplifier could be used in fields where visible or IR light is essential, such as disease diagnosis, treatments, visualization of internal organs and tissues, and surgical operations.


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Noninvasive Terahertz Near-Field Imaging Targets Inner Ear Disorders

 

Hearing impairment is generally caused by disorders within the cochlea of the inner ear. Effective treatment of hearing loss requires a clear view of the cochlea’s internal structures, which are difficult to assess noninvasively.

To perform nondestructive detection of the cochlea’s internal structure with sufficient spatial resolution, researchers at Waseda University, working with colleagues at Kobe University and Osaka University, developed a terahertz imaging technique to visualize the cochlea through near-field imaging and 3D reconstruction.

The imaging technique provided clear structural information at varying depths, enabling the researchers to visualize intricate cochlear features. The 3D reconstruction process yielded high-quality spatial representations of the cochlea, enhancing the researchers’ understanding of the cochlea’s internal architecture.

The terahertz imaging technique could be integrated into miniaturized devices, enabling noninvasive, in vivo imaging for cochlear diagnostics, dermatology, and early cancer detection.

One of the challenges facing the researchers was the diffraction limit of terahertz waves. The cochlea is a small organ, on the order of millimeters, and the observation of its internal structure requires a spatial resolution on the order of micrometers. In conventional terahertz instruments, the spatial resolution of terahertz imaging is limited to the millimeter level.

To achieve high-resolution terahertz imaging, the researchers generated a micrometer-sized terahertz point source with a femtosecond laser at a wavelength of 1.5 μm. They used the femtosecond laser to irradiate a gallium arsenide (GaAs) substrate and placed a mouse cochlear sample directly on the substrate to enable near-field imaging.

Using a terahertz near-field point source microscope with micrometer-level spatial resolution, they performed nondestructive terahertz imaging of the mouse cochlea, visualizing its internal structure.

“By leveraging terahertz waves, we can achieve deeper tissue penetration while preserving structural clarity,” professor Kazunori Serita, who led the research, said.

The researchers applied the time-of-flight principle to convert the time scale of each terahertz image into a depth scale. They used k-means clustering, an unsupervised machine learning algorithm, to extract 3D structural information from scanned 2D time-domain images. With this information, they reconstructed the 3D internal structure of the mouse cochlea, creating a 3D point cloud and surface mesh model.

The researchers implemented 3D terahertz time-of-flight imaging and 3D image reconstruction with high reliability and accuracy.

The results demonstrate the potential of 2D and 3D terahertz imaging for high-resolution, nondestructive analysis of inner-ear structures, and highlight the value of advanced terahertz imaging for biological studies. The new “The integration of terahertz technology with existing medical devices, such as endoscopes, holds great potential for revolutionizing the way diseases are diagnosed, particularly in oncology and pathology,” Serita said.

With its noninvasive, high-resolution capabilities, terahertz technology could offer a useful approach for medical imaging and analysis.

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Abrisa Technologies Acquires Agama Glass Technologies

SANTA PAULA, Calif. — Abrisa Technologies, a provider of custom glass optics and thin film coatings and a subsidiary of HEF Photonics, has acquired Agama Glass Technologies, a manufacturer of etched anti-glare glass and technical glass processing. The acquisition, Abrisa said, expands its manufacturing footprint and adds a vertically integrated solution for chemically etched anti-glare display glass. According to Abrisa, Clarksburg, West Virginia-based Agama operates North America’s only high-volume technical glass etching facility.

Agama's flagship product, AgamaEtch, is used in high-performance display and optics applications. The company's 85,000 sq ft facility also offers precision glass fabrication, chemical strengthening, and silk-screen printing, serving markets such as avionics, defense, medical, industrial, and touchscreen displays. Combined with Abrisa Technologies’ and HEF Photonics’ thin-film coating and surface engineering capabilities, Agama's offerings will gain greater versatility and scalability, according to the companies.

Agama Glass Technologies will continue operating under its current name, with no immediate changes to management or operations. Susan Hirst, general manager of Abrisa Industrial Glass, will collaborate closely with Agama leadership to integrate and enhance processing capabilities.

HEF Photonics also recently acquired Telic Company, further strengthening its position in advanced materials and photonics engineering. Telic adds expertise in thin-film deposition, photolithography, and microfabrication for precision optics and microelectromechanical systems applications. These capabilities complement those of Abrisa and Agama by adding micro-patterning, wafer-level processing, and cleanroom-based optical component manufacturing to the group’s portfolio.

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Time-Resolved Single-Photon Arrays

Photon Force is an award-winning SME building on over a decade of successful research experience. Our mission is to provide innovative single-photon sensitive detector technologies to accelerate industry and research. Broad applications in the biomedical and quantum technology fields include significantly improved diffuse correlation spectroscopy (DCS) and fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy (FLIM). Photon Force is a leading commercial supplier of CMOS time-resolved SPAD arrays, offering the world's highest time-resolved single-photon counting throughput, and is developing several next generation SPAD-based technologies and processing capabilities.

In TCSPC mode, within each pixel, dedicated circuitry registers a time-stamp upon the detection of a single photon with 55ps accuracy. These time-stamps are histogrammed in the camera hardware and read out via USB-C or PCIe at rates that allow up to 500 million photons to be time-stamped per second.

In photon counting mode, the current generation of sensors can read out up to 700 kfps, enabling fast decorrelation times within DCS to be observed. Our proprietary in-camera processing provides hardware acceleration of autocorrelation calculations, greatly reducing the computational time for our customers to see results.

With OEM integration in mind, our PF32 module range offers reduced size, weight, and power to bring ultrafast photon counting and timing to new products in fields stretching from biomedical to quantum and remote sensing.

Whatever your time-resolved photon counting needs are, Photon Force is here to offer a full solution – from sensor through to software. Get in touch now and start your journey with us.


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Silicon Photonics Drives Optical Tweezer Innovation

Compared to bulk optical tweezers, integrated optical tweezers are compact and low-cost, making them practical for most research organizations. But so far, integrated optical tweezers have been of limited use in biological research, due to the very small standoff distances they provide.

To increase the standoff distance, researchers at MIT used an integrated optical phased array (OPA). The silicon photonics-based OPA enables trapping and tweezing of biological particles at 5 mm above the chip surface, enlarging the standoff distance by more than two orders of magnitude. The OPA tweezers can capture and manipulate biological particles from a safe distance while the particles remain inside a sterile cover slip. Both the chip and the particles are protected from contamination.

The OPA optical tweezers offer the advantages of integrated tweezers along with much of the functionality of bulk optical systems. Someday, the OPA tweezers could be used to study DNA, classify cells, investigate disease mechanisms, and perform experiments not possible with prior implementations of integrated tweezers.
The OPA is used to focus the light emitted by the chip at a specific point in the radiative near field of the chip. It provides a steerable potential energy well in the plane of the sample that can be used to trap and tweeze microscale particles.

The OPA consists of a series of microscale antennas fabricated on a chip using semiconductor manufacturing processes. By electronically controlling the optical signal emitted by each antenna, the researchers can direct the OPA to shape and steer the beam emitted by the chip.

Most integrated OPAs developed to date are not designed to generate the tightly focused beams needed for optical tweezing. The MIT team found that, by creating specific phase patterns for each antenna, it could form an intensely focused beam suitable for optical trapping and tweezing several mm from the chip’s surface. By varying the wavelength of the optical signal that powers the chip, the researchers can steer the focused beam over a range larger than 1 mm with microscale accuracy.

“No one had created silicon photonics-based optical tweezers capable of trapping microparticles over a millimeter-scale distance before,” Notaros said. “This is an improvement of several orders of magnitude higher compared to prior demonstrations.”

The researchers used the OPA optical tweezers to trap polystyrene microspheres 5 mm above the surface of the chip and calibrate the optical trap system. They nonmechanically steered the focal spot of the beam by varying the input laser wavelength. They changed the system from a static optical trap to dynamic optical tweezers and demonstrated tweezing of polystyrene microspheres in one-dimensional patterns with high fidelity and submicron precision.

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Time Crystals Amplify Light Exponentially for Lasing, Sensing

The first practical approach to creating photonic time crystals at optical frequencies, developed by an international research team, could lay the groundwork for faster, more compact lasers, sensors, and other optical devices.

The team comprising scientists from Aalto University, the University of Eastern Finland, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, and Harbin Engineering University previously demonstrated photonic time crystals at microwave frequencies. However, designing the crystals at optical frequencies has remained a challenge for the researchers, due to the need for a fast, large-amplitude variation of properties in the material platforms for these crystals.

Unlike traditional crystals, which have spatially repeating structures, photonic time crystals are uniform in space, but exhibit a periodic oscillation in time. This temporal oscillation creates a momentum bandgap in the crystal, an unusual state during which light pauses inside the crystal while its intensity grows exponentially over time. The momentum bandgaps in photonic time crystals can lead to exotic light-matter interactions.

To achieve a momentum bandgap that is large enough to noticeably amplify light, the material platforms for photonic time crystals require substantial modulation strength. The modulation strength in most material platforms tends to be low.

The researchers devised a way to expand the momentum bandgaps in photonic time crystals through resonances. By introducing temporal variations in a resonant material, the team was able to expand the momentum bandgap in the material and produce a modulation strength in reach with known low-loss materials and realistic laser pump powers. The resonance came from an intrinsic material resonance or by using a material that was spatially constructed to support a structural resonance. Rather than seeking out new materials with improved nonlinear characteristics, the researchers capitalized on artificial composites that could support high-quality resonances.

The team validated its concept for resonant photonic time crystals for bulk materials and optical metasurfaces through theoretical models and electromagnetic simulations.

The team’s findings indicate that momentum bandgap size can be enhanced considerably by exploiting the structural resonances in the metasurfaces of photonic time crystals. The researchers achieved a momentum bandgap size that was 350 x wider than the same metasurface operating far away from the structural resonances, with a modulation strength as small as 1%. In principle, a stronger resonance has the potential to decrease the required modulation strength even further, the team said.

“Imagine we want to detect the presence of a small particle, such as a virus, pollutant, or biomarker for diseases like cancer,” Aalto University professor Viktar Asadchy said. “When excited, the particle would emit a tiny amount of light at a specific wavelength. A photonic time crystal can capture this light and automatically amplify it, enabling more efficient detection with existing equipment.”

The new approach to light amplification in photonic time crystals could lead to the design of more complex photonic time and space-time crystals. The geometry developed by the team, which does not require the emitter to be immersed inside a solid material, could be used to amplify the spontaneous emission of light from emitters near the structure.

This approach to creating photonic time crystals could also be used to design lenses. Although the photonic time crystals developed by the team operate in the IR spectrum, the crystals can be implemented for the visible spectrum using other materials.

“This work could lead to the first experimental realization of photonic time crystals, propelling them into practical applications and potentially transforming industries,” Asadchy said. “From high-efficiency light amplifiers and advanced sensors to innovative laser technologies, this research challenges the boundaries of how we can control the light-matter interaction.”
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