Biological sciences articles within Nature Photonics

Featured

  • News & Views |

    Diode lasers represent a viable alternative to light sources used in many biomedical applications. Their ongoing development will further increase their importance, offering not only multiple wavelength ranges, but also higher power levels.

    • Rachel Won

  • Commentary |

    The concept of optical computing is reintroduced with an important new twist — optical computing not as a digital machine, but as an analog engine able to serve as a hardware accelerator for existing electronic computers.

    • Daniel R. Solli
    •  & Bahram Jalali

  • Commentary |

    The use of photonics technology is bringing new capabilities and insights to cardiovascular medicine. Intracoronary imaging and sensing, laser ablation and optical pacing are just some of the functions being explored to help diagnose and treat conditions of the heart and arteries.

    • Gijs van Soest
    • , Evelyn Regar
    •  & Antonius F. W. van der Steen

  • Letter |

    A compact source that generates sub-two-cycle-duration pulses with an average power of 0.1 W spanning 6.8–16.4 μm combines the properties of power scalability, high repetition rate and phase coherence for the first time in this spectral region.

    • I. Pupeza
    • , D. Sánchez
    •  & J. Biegert

  • Article |

    Researchers exploit direct stochastic optical reconstruction microscopy and dedicated detection of super-critical-angle fluorescence emission to enable direct optical nanoscopy with axially localized detection.

    • N. Bourg
    • , C. Mayet
    •  & S. Lévêque-Fort

  • Article |

    The prediction of light propagation up to hundreds of millimetres within straight or even deformed segments of multimode fibres is demonstrated. The concept is applied in an endoscope and exceptional resolution and footprint are obtained.

    • Martin Plöschner
    • , Tomáš Tyc
    •  & Tomáš Čižmár

  • News & Views |

    Fluctuations in light transmitted through a plasmonic nanohole-structure provide a way of mapping Raman transitions in nanoscale objects, including single proteins.

    • Alexander Weigel
    •  & Philipp Kukura

  • News & Views |

    The use of carbon nanotubes makes it possible to perform fluorescent imaging of cerebral vasculature of mice through their intact skulls. The high spatial and temporal resolution of the non-invasive technique may prove useful for studies of stroke and other brain disorders.

    • Steen J. Madsen

  • Interview |

    A burst-mode camera developed in Japan called STAMP with a femtosecond frame rate could become a powerful tool for studying ultrafast dynamics. Nature Photonics asked Keiichi Nakagawa about the technique.

    • Noriaki Horiuchi

  • Article |

    A high-resolution, broadband imaging system based on coherent anti-Stokes Raman spectroscopy performs rapid, chemically specific imaging of biological tissue. It employs three-colour excitation and operates across the entire biological window.

    • Charles H. Camp Jr
    • , Young Jong Lee
    •  & Marcus T. Cicerone

  • News & Views |

    It has been 20 years since near-infrared spectroscopy was first used to investigate human brain function. The technique has subsequently been extended to offer high-resolution imaging of the cortex and has now become a viable alternative to functional magnetic resonance imaging.

    • Robert J. Cooper

  • Article |

    High-resolution diffuse optical tomography employing a large array of light sources and detectors arranged around the head can perform functional brain imaging. It provides an alternative to magnetic resonance imaging for monitoring activity in different areas of the brain.

    • Adam T. Eggebrecht
    • , Silvina L. Ferradal
    •  & Joseph P. Culver

  • Article |

    An investigation of the use of nonlinear upconversion effects like second-harmonic generation and four-wave mixing within biological tissue indicates that it should be possible to perform photodynamic therapy with near-infrared laser light at greater depths than previously.

    • A. V. Kachynski
    • , A. Pliss
    •  & P. N. Prasad

  • News & Views |

    A clever extension to a classic phase-contrast microscope allows speckle-free three-dimensional quantitative phase imaging of living cells in a tomographic imaging mode.

    • Arno Bouwens
    •  & Theo Lasser

  • News & Views |

    Tuning the luminescence lifetimes of upconversion nanocrystals through lanthanide doping provides new opportunities for optical multiplexing in the time domain for applications in imaging and security marking.

    • Renren Deng
    •  & Xiaogang Liu

  • Letter |

    Two-, three- and higher multiphoton absorption processes are shown to occur in amyloid protein fibres, which are thought to play a role in various diseases, including Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases. The nonlinear optical behaviour of such proteins may also be useful for fabricating photonics devices.

    • Piotr Hanczyc
    • , Marek Samoc
    •  & Bengt Norden

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