Various embodiments may provide an optical system. The optical system may include a laser source configured to emit a pump beam. The optical system may also include a non-linear medium configured to generate, based on the pump beam, an idler beam configured to incident on the sample and configured to be reflected, and a signal beam. The optical system may further include a mirror configured to reflect the signal beam so that the reflected signal beam interacts with the reflected idler beam in the non-linear medium to generate a resultant signal beam that carries an interference pattern. The optical system may additionally include a detector configured to receive the resultant signal beam for imaging the sample. The optical system may also include one or more optical elements configured to direct the idler beam from the non-linear medium to the sample, and the signal beam from the non-linear medium to the mirror.

Disclosed are methods of detecting an analyte of interest comprising introducing a sample comprising an analyte of interest to an antibody or antibody fragment; incubating the sample and antibody or antibody fragment under conditions sufficient to allow binding of the analyte of interest to the antibody or antibody fragment; and detecting the binding of the analyte of interest to the antibody or antibody fragment using a label-free second harmonic detection system. Also disclosed are methods of screening and diagnosing using antibodies or antibody fragments and a label-free second harmonic detection system.

A system is provided. The system has a femtosecond oscillator to generate pulses used for pump and probe beams. A photonic crystal fiber is disposed in a path of the probe beam and produces pulses for a chirped probe beam. A high NA objective receives the pump and the chirped probe beam, redirects the received beams through a dielectric substrate towards an interface between a sample and the dielectric substrate to cause total internal reflection (TIR) at the sample-substrate interface, and produces corresponding evanescent waves in a portion of the sample adjacent to the sample-substrate interface, and collects a backward-propagating beam of pulses of responsive light. The portion of the sample illuminated by the evanescent waves emits responsive light. The dielectric substrate is transparent to the responsive light, the pump and the chirped probe beam. An image is produced having a specific image size using the received backward-propagating beam.

A gas sensor comprising: a substrate; a grating array disposed on top of the substrate and comprising grates; and voids defined by the grates and configured to confine gas molecules for absorption of light and analysis. A method of gas sensing comprising: generating first light; converting the first light into second light using grates of a grating array; resonating the second light within the grating array; confining gas molecules in voids defined by the grates; and causing the gas molecules to absorb the second light within the voids.

An object is to provide a shape measurement system and a shape measurement method that allow deriving a three-dimensional shape of a linear object to be measured over a long distance and with high resolution. A shape measurement system according to the present invention includes: a multi-core optical fiber (10) including a center core (11) arranged in a center of a cross section of the multi-core optical fiber (10) and three or more outer peripheral cores (12) arranged at equal intervals on an outside of the center core (11) and in a concentric manner; a measuring device (20) that measures a backward Brillouin scattering light distribution in a propagation direction of each core of the multi-core optical fiber (10); and an analysis device (30) that computes positional coordinates in a three-dimensional space of a linear structural object having an unknown three-dimensional shape from the backward Brillouin scattering light distribution of the multi-core optical fiber (10) arranged along the linear structural object having the unknown three-dimensional shape and the multi-core optical fiber (10) arranged along a linear structural object having an already-known three-dimensional shape.

A pressure cell for sum frequency generation spectroscopy includes: a metal pressure chamber; a heating stage that heats the liquid sample; a pump, connected to an interior of the metal pressure chamber, that pressurizes the interior of the metal pressure chamber; and a controller that controls the pump and the heating stage to control a pressure of the interior of the metal pressure chamber and a temperature of a liquid sample. The metal pressure chamber includes: a base that retains the liquid sample; a removable lid that seals against the base to enclose the liquid sample in the metal pressure chamber; and a window in the removable lid that exposes the liquid sample to an exterior of the metal pressure chamber.

Embodiments disclosed include methods and apparatus for Fluorescent Enhanced Photothermal Infrared (FE-PTIR) spectroscopy and chemical imaging, which enables high sensitivity and high spatial resolution measurements of IR absorption with simultaneous confocal fluorescence imaging. In various embodiments, the FE-PTIR technique utilizes combined/simultaneous OPTIR and fluorescence imaging that provides significant improvements and benefits compared to previous work by simultaneous detection of both IR absorption and confocal fluorescence using the same optical detector at the same time.

A photo-thermal speckle spectroscopy device having an infrared laser, a visible laser, a foam, and a camera. The infrared and visible lasers are focused on the foam, which causes the visible laser to scatter. A camera records the speckle pattern, which shifts when the IR laser is turned on. The related method of photo-thermal speckle spectroscopy is also disclosed.

An achromatic 3D STED measuring optical process and optical method, based on a conical diffraction effect or an effect of propagation of light in uniaxial crystals, including a cascade of at least two uniaxial or conical diffraction crystals creating, from a laser source, all of the light propagating along substantially the same optical path, from the output of an optical bank to the objective of a microscope. A spatial position of at least one luminous nano-emitter, structured object or a continuous distribution in a sample is determined.

Reconstruction of the sample and its spatial and/or temporal and/or spectral properties is treated as an inverse Bayesian problem leading to the definition of an a posteriori distribution, and a posteriori relationship combining, by virtue of the Bayes law, the probabilistic formulation of a noise model, and possible priors on a distribution of light created in the sample by projection.

Devices and methods for recording dynamics of cellular and/or biochemical processes, including a device including one or more dispersive elements configured to receive a pulsed laser beam with a spectrum of different wavelengths and disperse the spectrum of the pulsed laser beam; and one or more first elements configured to receive the dispersed spectrum of the pulsed laser beam, and generate a multiphoton excitation area in a biological sample by re-overlapping in time and space the dispersed spectrum of the pulsed laser beam on an area in the biological sample, wherein the device is configured to record at high speed changes of cellular and biochemical processes of a population of cells of the biological sample based on generation of the multiphoton excitation area in the biological sample.