Low-Cost And Portable Uv Holographic Microscope For High-Contrast Protein Crystal Imaging

Summary

UCLA researchers in the Department of Electrical Engineering have developed an on-chip UV holographic imaging microscope that offers a low-cost, portable, and robust technique to image and distinguish protein crystals from salt crystals.

Background

Dual-mode microscopes composed of bright-field and ultraviolet (UV) induced fluorescence modes are an important tool for imaging protein crystals and distinguishing them from salt crystals.  These dual-mode optical microscopes are sensitive enough for protein and salt crystal distinction.  However, these microscopes require UV-grade optics, which are relatively bulky and expensive.  Moreover, applying lens-based microscopy to conventional UV microscopes has a trade-off between the field-of-view (FOV) and resolution, which limits the total sample area that can be imaged.

Innovation

UCLA researchers have developed an on-chip UV holographic imaging microscope that offers a low-cost, portable and robust technique to image and distinguish protein crystals from salt crystals without the need fot expensive and bulky optical components.  The UV transmission images are captured over a large FOV that is only limited by the sensor active area ( >10 square mm).  The device does not require fine alignment and possesses high temperature stability, unlike its lens-based counterparts.  Thus, this on-chip UV holographic microscope could serve as a low-cost, sensitive and robust alternative to conventional lens-based UV-microscopes used in protein crystallography.  Moreover, it is expected that this portable on-chip UV holographic imaging platform could be even further improved with near real-time imaging capabilities, driven by future improvements in deep UV LED power output and the increasing availability of embedded graphics processing units (GPUs) for single-board computers.

Applications

• UV microscopes
• Protein Crystallography
• Pharmaceutical quality control
• Semiconductors and Displays: High-resolution imaging, OLED development, microfluidic device development

Advantages

• Low cost, portable, and robust
• Large FOV limited only by the sensor active area
• Does not require fine alignment and no temperature stability issues

Patent Status

Related Materials

• Daloglu, M.U., Ray, A., Gorocs, Z., Xiong, M., Malik, R., Bitan, G., McLeod, E. and Ozcan, A., 2017. Computational On-Chip Imaging of Nanoparticles and Biomolecules using Ultraviolet Light. Scientific reports, 7, p.44157.