Melnyk Olha, Jones Reed, Macêdo Rair, Garbovskiy Yuriy, Hagen Guy, Glushchenko Anatoliy V, Spendier Kathrin, Camley Robert E
UCCS Biofrontiers Center and Department of Physics and Energy Science, University of Colorado Colorado Springs, Colorado Springs, Colorado 80918, United States.
James Watt School of Engineering, Electronics & Nanoscale Engineering Division, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QQ, United Kingdom.
ACS Photonics. 2021 Apr 21;8(4):1222-1231. doi: 10.1021/acsphotonics.1c00151. Epub 2021 Apr 6.
We develop tunable optical filters with dual-frequency nematic liquid crystal optical retarders to enable fast switching between the passed wavelengths. The filters are composed of a series of two liquid crystal optical retarders. We select the specific thicknesses of the liquid crystal retarders and use individual biasing schemes to continuously tune the wavelength and bandwidth of the filter. This enables fine-tuned filter switching speeds of filter operation in the ms regime. We present theoretical predictions and experimental results for the electro-optical filter characterization as well as an example application for our filter in total internal reflection fluorescence microscopy. We find that our filter switching speeds can be as short as a few ms, an order of magnitude improvement over typical mechanical filter wheel switching speeds. The quality of our fluorescence images is similar to those obtained by conventional filters.
我们利用双频向列型液晶光学延迟器开发了可调谐光学滤波器，以实现透过波长之间的快速切换。这些滤波器由一系列两个液晶光学延迟器组成。我们选择液晶延迟器的特定厚度，并采用单独的偏置方案来连续调谐滤波器的波长和带宽。这使得滤波器在毫秒范围内的操作能够实现微调的切换速度。我们给出了电光滤波器特性的理论预测和实验结果，以及我们的滤波器在全内反射荧光显微镜中的一个示例应用。我们发现我们的滤波器切换速度可以短至几毫秒，比典型的机械滤光轮切换速度提高了一个数量级。我们的荧光图像质量与传统滤波器获得的图像质量相似。
