A research group led by Yasushi Toraya, a graduate student at Tokyo Institute of Technology (at that time), succeeded in designing an objective mirror "TORA-FUJI mirror" that corrects all aberrations while having a high numerical aperture.
In molecular biology, it is important to mainly observe the three-dimensional structure of one or a few molecules, and to get a bird's-eye view of the entire system inside the cell.However, the current technology has not been able to visualize the macroscopic assembly state of multiple molecules.Therefore, for 1 years, the research group has independently developed a "cryofluorescence microscope" for samples cooled to extremely low temperatures that can realize such imaging. In 15, we succeeded in determining the three-dimensional position of one dye molecule with a spatial accuracy of 2017 nanometer (1/1 million cm).
However, the field of view of this microscope is several microns, which is an order of magnitude smaller than the size of cells, making it difficult to apply to biological systems.Therefore, a master's student in the Toraya course (at that time) worked on the design of a new objective.As a result, we succeeded in designing a Torafuji mirror (Note) suitable for observing biological systems by expanding the field of view 1 times in area ratio while maintaining excellent optical performance.The key to this success is the use of catadioptric systems consisting only of non-mainstream mirrors in the objective lens design.
The successfully designed Torafuji mirror has excellent environmental resistance (all temperatures from extremely low temperature to room temperature, strong magnetic field), high numerical aperture (achieves 0.93 in terms of lens performance), and wide field of view (viewing diameter 72 μm). ), A reflective objective lens for ultra-low temperature that has parallel corrections for aberrations (monochromatic aberration, chromatic aberration) that are deviations from the ideal image formation.The research group is in the process of researching biological systems using a prototype Torafuji mirror.
It is expected that the results of this research will advance the understanding of living things by realizing molecular-level visualization of life phenomena, and will advance the elucidation of many mysteries of life.
Note: "Torafuji Kagami" is named after Mr. Yasushi Toraya, who found the ultimate design, and Dr. Masaru Fujiwara, who wrote the final drawing.
Paper information:[Applied Physics Letters] Aberration corrected cryogenic objective mirror with a 0.93 numerical aperture
