Mechanical properties of living biological cells are important for cells to maintain their shapes, support mechanical stresses and move through tissue matrix. The use of optical tweezers to measure micromechanical properties of cells has recently made significant progresses. This paper presents a new approach, the oscillating optical tweezer cytorheometer (OOTC), which takes advantage of the coherent detection of harmonically modulated particle motions by a lock-in amplifier to increase sensitivity, temporal resolution and simplicity. We demonstrate that OOTC can measure the dynamic mechanical modulus in the frequency range of 0.1-6,000 Hz at a rate as fast as 1 data point per second with submicron spatial resolution. More importantly, OOTC is capable of distinguishing the intrinsic non-random temporal variations from random fluctuations due to Brownian motion; this capability, not achievable by conventional approaches, is particular useful because living systems are highly dynamic and often exhibit non-thermal, rhythmic behavior in a broad time scale from a fraction of a second to hours or days. Although OOTC is effective in measuring the intracellular micromechanical properties, unless we can visualize the cytoskeleton in situ, the mechanical property data would only be as informative as that of "Blind men and the Elephant". To solve this problem, we take two steps, the first, to use of fluorescent imaging to identify the granular structures trapped by optical tweezers, and second, to integrate OOTC with 3-D confocal microscopy so we can take simultaneous, in situ measurements of the micromechanics and intracellular structure in living cells. In this paper, we discuss examples of applying the oscillating tweezer-based cytorheometer for investigating cultured bovine endothelial cells, the identification of caveolae as some of the granular structures in the cell as well as our approach to integrate optical tweezers with a spinning disk confocal microscope.
For the past decade, the explosive growth of Internet data communication, together with the ever-increasing traffic demand for traditional voice service, has fueled the rapid development of optical communication systems. While the aggregate traffic demand is largely met by the deployment of DWDM technologies and the increasing data rates toward 40 Gb/s, the current optical communication system has also evolved into a complicated multi-wavelength system, which asks for many innovative technologies for realizing its vast capacities and promises. One such greatly desired network element is a large-scale optical cross-connect (OXC) in the core network to facilitate optical layer networking at the wavelength level. In recent years a variety of technologies have been studied as potential candidates. Many advances have been made, and many lessons have been learned. In this paper, we will discuss the architectural and performance requirements for OXC, and analyze various optical switching technologies. Particularly we will focus on the microelectro- mechanical-systems (MEMS) technology that has demonstrated vast promises for large-scale OXCs.
The current fiber optical communication system has evolved into a complicated multi-wavelength system with the deployment of Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) networks. Many innovative technologies are desired to materialize its vast capacities and promises. MEMS technology has recently emerged as a competitive candidate to solve many technical challenges encountered in current WDM networks. Its applications have spanned from large scale optical switch fabrics such as optical cross-connects, optical add/drop multiplexers, to a large variety of active and passive optical components for transmission networks, such as tunable lasers and filters, dispersion compensation devices, amplifier gain equalizers, polarization controllers, and many others. In this paper we will discuss the current development status, promises and challenges, and the future prospects of MEMS technologies for optical communication, with a primary focus on MEMS-based optical cross-connects.
The rapid growth of Internet data communication, facilitated by the advent of wavelength-division-multiplexing technologies, has influenced ways of communications worldwide substantially, and demanded for innovations in network architectures and technologies. MEMS has recently emerged as a promising and heavily-suit-after technology for implementing various network elements and components in optical networks, such as optical cross-connects (OXCs), wavelength add/drop, tunable laser and filter, modulator, variable attenuator, gain equalizer, polarization controller, and dispersion compensator. We discuss current status, challenges lying in front, and future prospect of this technology.
Rapid growth in demand for optical network capacity and the sudden maturation of wavelength-division-multiplexing (WDM) technologies have led to development of long-haul optical network systems that transport tens to hundreds of wavelengths per fiber, with each wavelength modulated at 10Gb/s or more. Micro-optical-electromechanical systems (MOEMS) devices, such as mirrors and lenses, are found to be the enabling technologies to build the next-generation cost-effective and reliable large port-count optical cross-connects (OXCs). While the basic roles of these MOEMS devices in an optical cross-connect are easily understood, the detailed mechanical design, electronics integration, packaging, control, and usage of these devices must reflect the stringent system requirements of the optical design and the electronic hardware of the network switch element. Due to the inter-dependence of many design parameters, manufacturing tolerances, and performance requirements, careful tradeoffs must be made to create reliable and manufacturable MOEMS devices. We describe various design tradeoffs and multi-disciplinary system considerations for building MOEMS-based large OXCs.
Polarizers and polarization beam splitters are the most important devices in magneto-optical readout system. With a commercially available foundry polysilicon surface micromachining process (Multi-User Means ProcesS, or MUMPS) offered by MCNC (Mems Center at North Carolina), we have realized, on a single Si chip, an integrated polarization beam splitting system with a binary phase Fresnel lens for collimation. Polarization extinction ratios of 10 dB for the transmitted light and over 20 dB for the reflected light have been achieved. The whole system is prealigned using Computer-Aided Design on a Si substrate and is then lifted up perpendicular to the substrate after structure release.
Access to the requested content is limited to institutions that have purchased or subscribe to SPIE eBooks.
You are receiving this notice because your organization may not have SPIE eBooks access.*
*Shibboleth/Open Athens users─please
sign in
to access your institution's subscriptions.
To obtain this item, you may purchase the complete book in print or electronic format on
SPIE.org.
INSTITUTIONAL Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.
PERSONAL Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.