Molecular Photonics Group

Nonlinear Optical Microscopy and CARS Microscopy make it possible to observe tissues in exciting new ways. These methods are able to selectivly observe specific molecular vibrations (corresponding to a particular cellular tissue) and therefore allow the imaging of cellular structures in a non-destructive way. Here are four videos taken using CARS Microscopy.

Rabbit aorta section	Crushed ant cells

Video 1: Multimodal CARS movie of rabbit aorta section. This is a scan in 3D with each frame showing a different slice of the tissue. Green: endogenous TPEF (mostly elastin); Blue: SHG in forward direction (mostly collagen); Red: CARS (mostly lipids). [with Michael Sowa and Alex Ko, IBD-NRC, Winnipeg]	Video 2: 3D stack of a crushed ant. Green is two-photon fluorescence from the ant exoskeleton and red is a CARS image of intracavity fat.
3D liver cells	Damaged liver cells

Video 3: 3D CARS rendering of hepatocytes. Bright spheres are lipid droplets	Video 4: 1 hour time series of hepatocytes treated with fluorescent dye (green colour). CARS signal is red. Bright green spots that appear towards end are indicative of damage.