Applications of liquid crystal devices in biomedical research

In the current report, we describe the development of an electrically tunable liquid crystal lens (eTLCL), that we name “foveal lens”, and its use in an adaptive excitation and imaging scheme applied to a commercial fluorescence microscope. The proposed approach allows the selection of the zone of interest and exciting mostly this area. This reduces significantly the fluorescence noise produced by the neighboring areas. In addition, we can also image the same zone of interest, further reducing the noise level. The zone of interest may be dynamically (electronically) scanned to cover the entire field of view without any mechanical movement. The basics of its operation as well as of its optical performance data will be reported. We think that this may improve dramatically the operation of fluorescence and other microscopes.