A light source unit includes: a housing; a semiconductor laser that is disposed in the housing and that radiates excitation light; a first condenser optical system that condenses the excitation light; a dichroic mirror that selectively reflects the excitation light; a second condenser optical system that condenses the excitation light; a wavelength conversion member that performs wavelength conversion of the excitation light and emits wavelength-converted light; an emission section that outputs the wavelength-converted light transmitted through the second condenser optical system and the dichroic mirror; and a light blocking section that is disposed between an inner surface of the housing, the inner surface being in a traveling direction of the excitation light toward a reflection surface of the dichroic mirror, and a back surface, the back surface being an opposite side of the reflection surface, or is disposed on the inner surface of the housing.

An observation device includes an illumination optical system and an observation optical system. The illumination optical system includes a light source and an aperture member. The observation optical system includes an objective lens, an optical structure, and a detector. The optical structure is disposed at a first position which is the position conjugate with the aperture member. The optical structure includes a blocking portion that blocks light and a transmitting portion that transmits light, the blocking portion having a shape including the shape of an image of an aperture of the aperture member which is formed on the optical structure. The detector detects dark-field light passing through the optical structure.

Disclosed are a photonic crystal microscope and a method of measuring cellular forces. The photonic crystal substrate includes a photonic crystal substrate, a stage, a probe light source, and an imaging assembly, the photonic crystal substrate being disposed above the stage, the probe light source and the imaging assembly being sequentially disposed at a side of the stage opposite the photonic crystal substrate, the photonic crystal substrate being configured to culture a to-be-measured cell, the photonic crystal substrate being deformable when the to-be-measured cell grows on the photonic crystal substrate; the probe light source is configured to emit probe light to the photonic crystal substrate; the photonic crystal substrate is configured to reflect the probe light to the imaging assembly; the imaging assembly is configured to receive the light reflected from the photonic crystal substrate to perform imaging.

Methods and systems are provided for improving resolution, acquisition speed, and/or illumination dose for microscopy systems. In some embodiments, a microscopy system having multiple objective setups may include illumination generators to provide selectively-blanked illumination line scans, objective lenses to introduce the selectively-blanked illumination line scans to a sample and to collect fluorescence emissions from the sample, and detectors to receive the fluorescence emissions from the objective lenses. The microscopy system may also include one or more processors in operative communication with the detectors, which may combine the fluorescence emissions to generate a composite image.

A method for obtaining a Fourier ptychography image using a smartphone comprises the steps of: (a) sequentially providing illumination of different angles to the sample by sequentially displaying, according to a first pattern composed of point light sources at different positions, the point light sources of the first pattern on a display of the smartphone; (b) obtaining an image for each illumination angle of the sample using a camera of the smartphone whenever illumination of different angles is provided by the point light sources of the first pattern; and (c) restoring a first Fourier ptychography image using a plurality of images for each illumination angle obtained using the camera of the smartphone.

A surgical microscope for visualizing a tissue region contains an illumination device with a light source and an illumination beam path for illuminating an object region with an object plane and an observation device having an observation beam path for imaging the object region with the object plane into an observation plane. A first polarizer can be coupled into the illumination beam path and is suitable for polarizing the illumination light in a first orientation. A polarizer, which can be coupled into the observation beam path, has a second orientation at an angle between 80° and 100° relative to the first orientation. In a first mode, the light source emits illumination light in a first wavelength range between 450 nm and 550 nm, the first polarizer is coupled into the illumination beam path, and the second polarizer is coupled into the observation beam path.

A microscope observation system comprises a cell production device provided with a culture vessel in which cells or cell masses are cultured, a microscope device capable of observing an object including cells or cell masses, a conveying apparatus that conveys the microscope device to the cell production device, and an operating control section that sends a command to the conveying apparatus to temporarily move the conveying apparatus from a current position to a relay position and then to move the conveying apparatus to a target position when focusing the microscope device onto the object, wherein a first distance from the current position to the relay position is a distance necessary to drive an actuator by at least a predetermined amount in order to actuate a rotation shaft or a translation shaft of the conveying apparatus, and a second distance from the current position to the target position is a shorter distance than the first distance.

A microscope observation system comprises a cell production device provided with a culture vessel in which cells or cell masses are cultured, a microscope device capable of observing an object including cells or cell masses, a conveying apparatus that conveys the microscope device to the cell production device, and an operating control section that sends a command to the conveying apparatus to temporarily move the conveying apparatus from a current position to a relay position and then to move the conveying apparatus to a target position when focusing the microscope device onto the object, wherein a first distance from the current position to the relay position is a distance necessary to drive an actuator by at least a predetermined amount in order to actuate a rotation shaft or a translation shaft of the conveying apparatus, and a second distance from the current position to the target position is a shorter distance than the first distance.

The technology disclosed present systems and methods to produce an enhanced resolution image from images of a target using structured illumination microscopy (SIM). The method includes transforming at least three images of the target captured by a sensor in a spatial domain into a Fourier domain to produce at least three frequency domain matrices that each include first blocks of complex coefficients and redundant second blocks of complex coefficients that are conjugates to the first blocks. The method includes reducing computing resources required to produce the enhanced resolution image by using first blocks of complex coefficients to produce at least three phase-separated half-matrices in the Fourier domain. The method includes performing one or more intermediate transformation on the phase-separated half-matrices to produce realigned shifted half-matrices. The method includes calculating complex coefficients of second blocks in the Fourier domain to produce full matrices from half-matrices.

The present disclosure generally relates to a molecular construct for multiphoton fluorescence microscopy imaging. The molecular construct has a first, non-fluorescent configuration (2PAP-C) and a second, fluorescent configuration (2PAP-CL), and comprises a two-photon absorbing probe (2PAP) linked to a photochromic molecule that can be reversibly changed from a first colored isomeric form (C) to a second colorless isomeric form (CL). The first colored form (C) can be isomerized to the second colorless isomeric form (CL) upon absorption of two photons by the two-photon absorbing probe (2PAP). The present disclosure also relates to a method for analyzing a target structure in a multiphoton microscope utilizing the molecular construct. Furthermore, the present disclosure relates to an antibody tagged with the molecular construct, and to the use of the molecular construct for imaging a target structure.