Fluorescence microscopy in a microwave cavity

Michael J R Previte,Chris D Geddes

doi:10.1364/oe.15.011640

Abstract

Optical microscopy is a well-established technique that has wide ranging applications for imaging molecular dynamics of biological systems. Typically, these applications rely on external temperature controllers to maintain or change reactions rates of these biological systems. With increasing interest in applying low power microwaves to drive biological and chemical reactions, we have combined optical and microwave based technologies and developed a fluorescence microscope in a microwave cavity. With this instrument, we have found a means to optically image biological systems inside microwave cavities during the application of microwave pulses.

Highlights

The study of the application of microwaves to biological systems has drawn interest with regards to the hazards of prolonged exposure to microwave irradiation [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]
While microwaves have been shown to accelerate the rate of chemical reactions [19,20,21,22,23,24,25] and enzyme-catalyzed biological reactions [8, 9, 24, 26, 27] some argue that the enhanced reaction rates in many microwave assisted reactions cannot be explained by heating alone
We have demonstrated the feasibility of constructing a fluorescence microscope in a microwave cavity

Summary

Introduction

The study of the application of microwaves to biological systems has drawn interest with regards to the hazards of prolonged exposure to microwave irradiation [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]. Since prolonged exposure to microwave irradiation has been considered deleterious to biological systems and biomolecules, the general applicability of microwave technology to biological studies has been limited [8]. More practical applications of microwave irradiation for biological studies have been reported [8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18]. Recent works summarize some existing theories with regard to the interactions of microwaves with biological systems [11, 32, 33], but many of these works describe the before and after effects of microwaves on biological systems with a few exceptions [10, 12, 14, 34]

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion