User:Andy Maloney/Fluorescence Schlieren Microscope

Background
This is a microscope that I built to investigate how ultrasound interacts with lipid membranes. There are two components to it, one part looks at the ultrasound waves and the other part picks up fluorescence from a dye that reports on the environment. I didn't get to finish it but I did get to look at ultrasound waves from my transducer.

This is a video of ultrasound. I've setup the optics so that the ultrasound and laser are synced. This allows me to visualize the sound waves from the transducer in real time. I move the transducer across the laser beam which allows me to see the curvature of sound due to my transducer. The transducer I am using focuses sound. You can also see the waves shifting a very small amount towards the end of the movie. I built circuitry so that the ultrasound could be delayed with respect to the laser pulses effectively causing a phase shift of the sound. I was able to delay the pulses 100 ns each step.

   

I really like this because you can actually see the sound waves. I do this by a technique called Schlieren imaging. I could have done a better job imaging the sound by using a quarter waveplate instead of a Foucault knife.

At any rate, I need to bring this page up to speed. I also need to add my Sketchup design for it.

Parts list
I'm not sure this is complete. But, at least it's a start.

Fly by
This is a quick Sketchup movie I made showing the different components of the microscope. It's quick and dirty so I will have to clean it up later.

   