Airy Light-sheet Research Articles

Pulling and spinning reversal of a subwavelength absorptive sphere in adjustable vector Airy light-sheets

In the framework of the electric dipole approximation, this work demonstrates the generation of a pulling/attractive longitudinal force and an axial spin torque sign reversal causing counterclockwise or clockwise rotation of a subwavelength absorptive sphere placed in adjustable Airy light-sheets. Based on the vector angular spectrum decomposition method, the Lorenz gauge condition and Maxwell's equations, the Cartesian components of the incident radiated electric field of the generalized adjustable solution are derived, for which the main maximum Airy-lobe (i.e. caustic) is translated in space. The results find potential applications in the design/manufacture of particle manipulation and optical sorting devices using adjustable Airy-light sheets.

Nonparaxial scalar Airy light-sheets and their higher-order spatial derivatives

Based on the angular spectrum decomposition method in plane waves, a generalized nonparaxial analytical solution for the electric field of a transverse electric Airy light-sheet including its spatial derivatives is formulated and presented. The beam-shape coefficients are expressed by an improper integral, which includes the generation of evanescent waves. The radiated component of the field is computed, and the cross-sectional plots display unique features of the nonparaxial Airy light-sheet and its higher-order derivatives. The results find important applications in predicting/computing the optical scattering, radiation force, and torque on an object using the multipole expansion method in cylindrical coordinates and particle dynamics.

Enhancement of image quality and imaging depth with Airy light-sheet microscopy in cleared and non-cleared neural tissue.

We have investigated the effect of Airy illumination on the image quality and depth penetration of digitally scanned light-sheet microscopy in turbid neural tissue. We used Fourier analysis of images acquired using Gaussian and Airy light-sheets to assess their respective image quality versus penetration into the tissue. We observed a three-fold average improvement in image quality at 50 μm depth with the Airy light-sheet. We also used optical clearing to tune the scattering properties of the tissue and found that the improvement when using an Airy light-sheet is greater in the presence of stronger sample-induced aberrations. Finally, we used homogeneous resolution probes in these tissues to quantify absolute depth penetration in cleared samples with each beam type. The Airy light-sheet method extended depth penetration by 30% compared to a Gaussian light-sheet.