Tag Archives: Dynamically Tunable Protein Microlenses

Femtosecond laser writing and lenses

I’m highlighting this because I found a great new word in this Dec. 16, 2011 news item on Nanowerk,

Whether it’s right under our nose or far away, when we observe an object we see it—provided we have healthy eyes and normal vision or suitable glasses—in focus. For this to work, muscles deform the lenses of our eyes and adjust them to a suitable focal distance. For miniaturized technical devices, microscale lenses with a similar adaptable focus could be an advantage.

In this case scientist Hong Bo Bun and a team from Jilin University (China) have devised a new technique for creating microlenses. From the news item (here’s the new word),

The Chinese researchers have now met this challenge: They used a laser to “write” the desired micrometer-sized lens shape out of a solution of bovine serum albumin, a protein. Methylene blue acts as a photosensitizer, which captures the light energy like an antenna and triggers a crosslinking reaction of the protein molecules. Driven by a computer, the laser cuts out the desired three-dimensional form voxel by voxel. A voxel is a three-dimensional pixel, a tiny segment of volume. The irradiation used is in femtosecond pulses, which lasts on the order of 10-13 seconds. The crosslinking reaction only takes place in the locations that are irradiated. After the reaction, the protein molecules that have not reacted can simply be rinsed away. What stays behind is a cross-linked, aqueous protein gel in the shapes of micrometer-sized lenses.

You can get more details from the news item on Nanowerk or (provided you can get past the paywall) from the article in the journal Angewandte Chemie (“Dynamically Tunable Protein Microlenses”) .