Medical Design and Outsourcing

  • Home
  • Medical Device Business
    • Mergers & Acquisitions
    • Financial
    • Regulatory
  • Applications
    • Cardiovascular
    • Devices
    • Imaging
    • Implantables
    • Medical Equipment
    • Orthopedic
    • Surgical
  • Technologies
    • Supplies and Components Index
    • Contract Manufacturing
    • Components
    • Electronics
    • Extrusions
    • Materials
    • Motion Control
    • Prototyping
    • Pumps
    • Tubing
  • MedTech Resources
    • Medtech Events in 2025
    • The 2024 Medtech Big 100
    • Medical Device Handbook
    • MedTech 100 Index
    • Subscribe to Print Magazine
    • DeviceTalks
    • Digital Editions
    • eBooks
    • Educational Assets
    • Manufacturer Search
    • Podcasts
    • Print Subscription
    • Webinars / Digital Events
    • Whitepapers
    • Voices
    • Video
  • 2025 Leadership
    • 2024 Winners
    • 2023 Winners
    • 2022 Winners
    • 2021 Winners
  • Women in Medtech
  • Advertise
  • Subscribe

Seeing Through Silicon

October 2, 2013 By Anne Trafton, MIT News Office

New microscopy technique allows scientists to visualize cells through the walls of silicon microfluidic devices.

Using quantitative phase imaging, MIT and UTA researchers created this image of red blood cells.Scientists at MIT and the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA) have developed a new type of microscopy that can image cells through a silicon wafer, allowing them to precisely measure the size and mechanical behavior of cells behind the wafer.

The new technology, which relies on near-infrared light, could help scientists learn more about diseased or infected cells as they flow through silicon microfluidic devices.

“This has the potential to merge research in cellular visualization with all the exciting things you can do on a silicon wafer,” says Ishan Barman, a former postdoc in MIT’s Laser Biomedical Research Center (LBRC) and one of the lead authors of a paper describing the technology in the Oct. 2 issue of the journal Scientific Reports.

Other lead authors of the paper are former MIT postdoc Narahara Chari Dingari and UTA graduate students Bipin Joshi and Nelson Cardenas. The senior author is Samarendra Mohanty, an assistant professor of physics at UTA. Other authors are former MIT postdoc Jaqueline Soares, currently an assistant professor at Federal University of Ouro Preto, Brazil, and Ramachandra Rao Dasari, associate director of the LBRC.

Silicon is commonly used to build “lab-on-a-chip” microfluidic devices, which can sort and analyze cells based on their molecular properties, as well as microelectronics devices. Such devices have many potential applications in research and diagnostics, but they could be even more useful if scientists could image the cells inside the devices, says Barman, who is now an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Johns Hopkins University.

To achieve that, Barman and colleagues took advantage of the fact that silicon is transparent to infrared and near-infrared wavelengths of light. They adapted a microscopy technique known as quantitative phase imaging, which works by sending a laser beam through a sample, then splitting the beam into two. By recombining those two beams and comparing the information carried by each one, the researchers can determine the sample’s height and its refractive index—a measure of how much the material forces light to bend as it passes through.

Traditional quantitative phase imaging uses a helium neon laser, which produces visible light, but for the new system the researchers used a titanium sapphire laser that can be tuned to infrared and near-infrared wavelengths. For this study, the researchers found that light with a wavelength of 980 nanometers worked best.

Using this system, the researchers measured changes in the height of red blood cells, with nanoscale sensitivity, through a silicon wafer similar to those used in most electronics labs.

As red blood cells flow through the body, they often have to squeeze through very narrow vessels. When these cells are infected with malaria, they lose this ability to deform, and form clogs in tiny vessels. The new microscopy technique could help scientists study how this happens, Dingari says; it could also be used to study the dynamics of the malformed blood cells that cause sickle cell anemia.

The researchers also used their new system to monitor human embryonic kidney cells as pure water was added to their environment—a shock that forces the cells to absorb water and swell up. The researchers were able to measure how much the cells distended and calculate the change in their index of refraction.

“Nobody has shown this kind of microscopy of cellular structures before through a silicon substrate,” Mohanty says.

“This is an exciting new direction that is likely to open up enormous opportunities for quantitative phase imaging,” says Gabriel Popescu, an assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign who was not part of the research team.

“The possibilities are endless: From micro- and nanofluidic devices to structured substrates, the devices could target applications ranging from molecular sensing to whole-cell characterization and drug screening in cell populations,” Popescu says.

Mohanty’s lab at UTA is now using the system to study how neurons grown on a silicon wafer communicate with each other.

In the Scientific Reports paper, the researchers used silicon wafers that were about 150 to 200 microns thick, but they have since shown that thicker silicon can be used if the wavelength of light is increased into the infrared range. The researchers are also working on modifying the system so that it can image in three dimensions, similar to a CT scan.

The research was funded by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering and Nanoscope Technologies, LLC.

Related Articles Read More >

A photo of Capstan Medical's mitral valve implant, which uses nitinol.
Capstan Medical’s R&D head discusses the heart valve and robotics startup’s tech, engineering challenges and solutions, advice for others in medtech and how to join his team
An illustration of a neurosurgeon using a robotic endoscope to remove a brain tumor.
MDO Nitinol Innovation Special Report
A photo of Highridge Medical CEO Rebecca Whitney.
Highridge Medical is betting on this spine tech
A photo of the miniature Auxilium Biotechnologies implants made on the International Space Station.
Implants 3D-printed in space could enable nerve regeneration
“mdo
EXPAND YOUR KNOWLEDGE AND STAY CONNECTED
Get the latest medical device business news, application and technology trends.

DeviceTalks Weekly

See More >

MDO Digital Edition

Digital Edition

Subscribe to Medical Design & Outsourcing. Bookmark, share and interact with the leading medical design engineering magazine today.

MEDTECH 100 INDEX

Medtech 100 logo
Market Summary > Current Price
The MedTech 100 is a financial index calculated using the BIG100 companies covered in Medical Design and Outsourcing.
DeviceTalks

DeviceTalks is a conversation among medical technology leaders. It's events, podcasts, webinars and one-on-one exchanges of ideas & insights.

DeviceTalks

New MedTech Resource

Medical Tubing

MassDevice

Mass Device

The Medical Device Business Journal. MassDevice is the leading medical device news business journal telling the stories of the devices that save lives.

Visit Website
MDO ad
Medical Design and Outsourcing
  • MassDevice
  • DeviceTalks
  • MedTech100 Index
  • Medical Tubing + Extrusion
  • Medical Design Sourcing
  • Drug Delivery Business News
  • Drug Discovery & Development
  • Pharmaceutical Processing World
  • R&D World
  • About Us/Contact
  • Advertise With Us
  • Subscribe to Print Magazine
  • Subscribe to our E-Newsletter
  • Listen to our Weekly Podcasts
  • Join our DeviceTalks Tuesdays Discussion

Copyright © 2025 WTWH Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of WTWH Media LLC. Site Map | Privacy Policy | RSS

Search Medical Design & Outsourcing

  • Home
  • Medical Device Business
    • Mergers & Acquisitions
    • Financial
    • Regulatory
  • Applications
    • Cardiovascular
    • Devices
    • Imaging
    • Implantables
    • Medical Equipment
    • Orthopedic
    • Surgical
  • Technologies
    • Supplies and Components Index
    • Contract Manufacturing
    • Components
    • Electronics
    • Extrusions
    • Materials
    • Motion Control
    • Prototyping
    • Pumps
    • Tubing
  • MedTech Resources
    • Medtech Events in 2025
    • The 2024 Medtech Big 100
    • Medical Device Handbook
    • MedTech 100 Index
    • Subscribe to Print Magazine
    • DeviceTalks
    • Digital Editions
    • eBooks
    • Educational Assets
    • Manufacturer Search
    • Podcasts
    • Print Subscription
    • Webinars / Digital Events
    • Whitepapers
    • Voices
    • Video
  • 2025 Leadership
    • 2024 Winners
    • 2023 Winners
    • 2022 Winners
    • 2021 Winners
  • Women in Medtech
  • Advertise
  • Subscribe