The large field of view and high resolution provided by the deformable mirror (DM) and the fast scanning mirror (FSM) used in adaptive scanning optical microscopy (ASOM) makes this technique ideal for real-time imaging and tracking of live samples. This was demonstrated by the researchers at RPI who developed the first adaptive scanning optical microscope. In biological applications ASOM provides cellular-level resolution, with a field of view large enough to observe living organisms that might otherwise “swim” out of the viewing field of a standard microscope. These organisms can be tracked without the need for a moving stage which can introduce vibrations in the biological media, potentially disrupt the normal mobility of the organism as well as create imaging artifacts..
Figure 1: Images show real-time observation and motion tracking data of a population of
C. elegans worms, an organism with a long history of research in the study of developmental biology. The FSM allows rapid repositioning of the observation area, while the real-time DM optimization maintains focus allowing multiple moving targets to easily be tracked. Figure 1a demonstrates three scan “tiles”: the first positioned on the head, the second on the midsection, and the third on the tail of a single C. elegans worm. Figures 1b and 1c illustrate the tracking of multiple and single worms, respectively.
Image Courtesy: Fern P. Finger, Benjamin Potsaid, John T. Wen, and Yves Bellouard, Smart Optics Lab, Center for Automation Technologies, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, New York
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