The Probe-combined Microspheres Applied in Biomedical Field for Super-resolution Imagings and Micromanipulations

Abstract

Because of the optical diffraction limit, standard optical microscopies are not suitable to directly observe the biological samples with the small size between 5 to 150 nm. It has been experimentally demonstrated that microspheres have the ability of super-resolution imaging. Here, we report a probe-combined microsphere which consists of a barium titanate microsphere with the diameter of $50 \\sim 100 \\mu m$ and a probe. The finite element method is performed by the COMSOL Multiphysics software to confirm that the probe has no influence on the microsphere imaging. When the probe-combined microsphere was installed on a three-dimensional precision translation stage, it can be moved to the desirable area to capture the tiny feature of rat liver slices and the appearance of cells. What’s more, the probe-combined microsphere can adsorb the cells on the back of the microsphere, and thus it can be used as a tool to pick up cells. Another probe can operate the cells and morphological changes of cells can be observed through the microsphere at the same time.