Microscope objectives are perhaps the most important components of an optical microscope because they are responsible for primary image formation and play a central role in determining the quality of images that the microscope is capable of producing. Objectives are also instrumental in determining the magnification of a particular specimen and the resolution under which fine specimen detail ca...

In this contribution we present the first diffractive optical elements for soft x-ray differential interference contrast microscopy. Due to an improved calculation method the nanofabrication accuracy of these optics is the same as for comparable normal zone plate optics with the same outermost zone width. Different diffractive optical elements were fabricated with outermost zone width of 100 nm...

Wehave been developing techniques to apply propagating surface plasmon polariton (SPP) resonances to the spectroscopic study of individual, subwavelength-sized particles. SPPs, mixed states of light and conducting electrons at the surface of a patterned metal surface, are part of, that is, mediate, the extraordinary transmission/reflection resonances of patterned metal meshes. A fair body of wo...

Diamond-like carbon nanocomposite films with embedded silver nanoparticles are considered experimentally (spectroellipsometric characterization) and theoretically (modeling of optical properties). Metallic nanocomposite films were synthesized by reactive magnetron sputtering and were studied by transmission electron microscope (TEM) and atomic force microscope (AFM). The optical constants of th...

optically encoded information about processes in live cells. Atomic force microscopy, on the other hand, provides nanometer-resolved surface topography and mechanical information, and has recently been expanded to nanometerresolved live cell mechanical property mapping. The integration of the two advanced live cell imaging techniques into one tool, with the capability to acquire simultaneous na...

Back-focal-plane detection of micrometer-sized beads offers subnanometer resolution for single-molecule, optical trapping experiments. However, laser beam-pointing instability and mechanical drift of the microscope limit the resolution of optical-trapping experiments. By combining two infrared lasers with improved differential beam-pointing stability (< or = 0.05 microrad), we simultaneously me...

We describe an experimental method to recover a single, deterministically fabricated nanostructure in various experimental instruments without the use of artificially fabricated markers, with the aim to study photonic structures. Therefore, a detailed map of the spatial surroundings of the nanostructure is made during the fabrication of the structure. These maps are made using a series of micro...

We have developed a high-speed confocal laser microscope. A microlens-array disk set in front of a pinhole-array disk improved optical efficiency more than ten times compared with that of conventional Nipkow confocal microscopy. This new microscope achieves a high-speed measurement of 1 frame/ms. We expect that it will be used for measuring biological and industrial active samples.