Tunable Vapor-Condensed Nano-Lenses

UCLA researchers in the Department of Electrical Engineering have developed an improved and cost-efficient nanolens to visualize nanoparticles and viral particles with 50 fold greater detection and more than 10 fold field-of-view compared to other imaging modalities.

Various methods exist to fabricate micro-scale lenses to image very small particles. Current forms of nanolenses, however, have limited resolution and sensitivity. Furthermore, imaging particles of a particular shape (i.e rod-shaped particles) may be problematic. The problem is further amplified when the particles are at a low concentration, making the capture of “rare events” unlikely.

Dr. Ozcan’s Lab in the Department of Electrical Engineering has showed that by exposing nanoparticles attached on a coverslip to polyethylene glycol (PEG) vapors, a thin film of PEG condenses over the particle samples, generating a meniscus and thus forming a nanolens. This nanolens is then placed in a lens-free holographic on-chip microscope for image generation. The method applied by Dr. Ozcan’s Lab allows for greater control of parameters (i.e. temperature) during lens fabrication.

The newly fabricated nanolenses has been successfully used to image both spherical and rod-shaped nanoparticles with greater sensitivity (~50 folds) and greater field-of-view (~10 folds) compared to standard methods. Furthermore, the lens is compatible with various nanomaterials and chemical modifications.