Boston College

The project is to develop a unique and powerful approach to nanoscale optical imaging, bridging near-field and far-field optics with deep sub-diffraction-limit resolution. When developed, this nanoscale coaxial optical microscope (NCOM) technique will facilitate rapid nanoscale optical imaging of micro- to macroscopic landscapes, under optical intensities well below those requiring laser illuminations, including the possibility of label-free imaging. The basic concept is a novel superlensing, guided wave metamaterial, consisting of an array of nanoscale coaxial waveguides. This array is arranged such that the spacing between the wire ends on one lens surface is smaller than the wavelength λ of visible light, while that on the other side exceeds λ. Each “nanocoax” at the object side collects light in its vicinity via an optical antenna effect and propagates it along the waveguide to the image side, where it emerges into the optical far-field. A conventional optical microscope, focused onto this projected image, can now resolve features with significantly greater resolution and lower optical intensity than current state-of-the-art techniques. This transformative NCOM technique, capable of noninvasively resolving features smaller than the diffraction limit, will find enormous utility in biological / living systems, in every field in medicine, including genetics, genomics, oncology, and pharmacology, and with wide applicability in the physical sciences.