2022/10/31 by Mojtaba Rajabi, Rajabi, Mojtaba, Oleg D. Lavrentovich +3 · 1 citation
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Engineering · #Advanced Fluorescence Microscopy Techniques #FOS: Physical sciences #Optical Polarization and Ellipsometry #Optics (physics.optics) #Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2211.00167
openalex publication_date 2022/10/31 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Polarizing microscopy brought about many advancements in the science of liquid crystals and other soft materials, including those of biological origin. Recent developments in optics and computer-based analysis enabled a new generation of quantitative polarizing microscopy which produces spatial maps of the optic axis. Unfortunately, most of the available approaches require a long acquisition time of multiple images which are then analyzed to produce the map. We describe a polychromatic polarizing microscope, which allows one to map the patterns of the optical axis in a single-shot exposure, thus enabling a fast temporal resolution. We present a comparative analysis of the new microscope with alternative techniques such as a conventional polarizing optical microscope and MicroImager of Hinds Instruments.