Exploring Living Cells and Molecular Dynamics with Polarized Light Microscopy

Polarized light imaging of birefringence and diattenuation at high resolution and high sensitivity

“…Inspired by Schmidt's observations, Shinya Inoué significantly improved the sensitivity of the instrument and made seminal contributions to our understanding of the architectural dynamics inside living cells (Inoue et al 1975; Inoué and Hyde 1957; Inoue and Sato 1967). For many lucid discussions of polarized light microscopy and its application to biology, we refer the reader to the many articles and books by Inoué, including his recently published Collected Works (Inoue 2002; Inoué 1986; Inoué 2003; Inoué 2008; Inoue and Oldenbourg 1998). Tinoco and collaborators reviewed the imaging of dichroism and diattenuation in biological materials (Tinoco et al 1987).…”

Orientation independent retardation imaging using quantitative polarized phase microscopy

“…Polarized light imaging has become a common way to noninvasively observe the fine structure in live biological specimens and other materials (Inoué, 2007; Stephens and Allan, 2003). On the other hand, the ability to quantify the content of live biological specimens without using exogenous dyes or fluorescent markers has become increasingly important and can only be obtained through phase imaging (Arnison et al, 2004; Mann et al, 2005; Pavani et al, 2008; Rylander et al, 2004), often in its quantitative form (Dragomir et al, 2007; Kemper et al, 2007; Lue et al, 2007).…”

“…Additionally, some of the most interesting and useful properties of transparent and translucent specimens have been investigated using phase‐based imaging with polarized light to extract information about the specimen's birefringence properties. Anisotropy is generated by local structural order at the level of atomic bonds and molecular arrangements in the specimen's structure (Inoué, 2007). …”

“…The measurement of optical anisotropy is of long‐standing interest, involving, in its simplest form, observing the specimen through crossed‐polarizers. The literature contains numerous examples of techniques that have been developed to characterize optical anisotropy (Inoué, 2007; Shribak and Oldenbourg, 2003; Xia et al, in press). Some require polarization‐analyzing optics, including polarizers, rotators, and retarders (Hartshorne and Stuart, 1970; Hutsel et al, 2009; Montarou et al, 2006) or other polarimetric methods (Oka and Kaneko, 2003; Oldenbourg and Mei, 1995; Shribak and Oldenbourg, 2003).…”

Inversion of the Debye-Wolf diffraction integral using an eigenfunction representation of the electric fields in the focal region

“…Synthesis of arbitrary field distributions in optical systems is useful for a wide variety of applications including lithography [1], optical data storage [2], atomic manipulation [3] and polarisation microscopy [4]. A significant number of alternative methods by which to produce a desired field distribution exist such as apodisation or phase masks [5], polarisation structuring [6] and computer generated holograms [7,8].…”