Abstract
Macroscopic properties of physical and biological processes like friction, wetting, and adhesion or cell migration are controlled by interfacial properties at the nanoscopic scale. In an attempt to bridge simultaneously investigations at different scales, we demonstrate here how optical microscopy in Wet-Surface Ellipsometric Enhanced Contrast (Wet-SEEC) mode offers imaging and measurement of thin films at solid/liquid interfaces in the range 1–500 nm with lateral optical resolution. A live, label-free and noninvasive methodology integrated with microfluidic devices allowed here characterization of polymers and proteins patterns together with corresponding phenotypes of living cells.
Highlights
Physicists have constantly developed novel techniques to investigate the microscopic and nanoscopic world in immersed conditions
Observations are made by interference reflection microscopy (IRM), an optical label-free technique that is usually used to reveal nanometric thin films between a settled specimen and a glass microscope slide[10]
The detection of thin films by IRM is efficient when the refractive index of the film is lower than the one of the upper medium, e.g. beads, vesicle or living cell separated from substrate by a thin film of solvent
Summary
Physicists have constantly developed novel techniques to investigate the microscopic and nanoscopic world in immersed conditions. Besides restrictions on lateral resolution due to diffraction, optical microscopy detection is principally limited by the lack of contrast of specimen, which is often colorless and translucent, for instance living cells or thin films of organic material. Differential interference contrast mode (DIC)[3],[4] and phase contrast mode (PC)[5] enhance image contrast by transforming phase changes induced by a transparent specimen into intensity differences. All these techniques suffer from important limitations
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