Harvard Licenses Microscopy Technology

The office of technology development at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., has licensed its coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering microscopy technology to Leica Microsystems GmbH of Wetzlar, Germany, for use in the latter’s confocal microscopes. For imaging, the technique uses two focused laser beams of different frequencies. When the difference between the frequencies equals the vibration frequency of a specific type of chemical bond, molecules incorporating the bond vibrate coherently. The anti-Stokes signal emitted can be used to map the molecule’s concentration to a resolution of 300 nm. The technology may have applications in the life sciences, where it could allow imaging of molecules in living cells.