Using a recently discovered effect (Laser Amplified Motion Detection and Analysis, LAMDA), this project is to develop a far- field optical microscope with a resolution of 10nm. This resolution, one-fiftieth of the wavelength of visible light and about one-twentieth of the resolution obtained by previous optical microscopes, would permit the imaging of detail never before realized with an optical microscope. The LAMDA microscope would be capable of making directly observable, in real time, such biological entities as DNA-protein complexes, the emergence of cell-growth factors in development, the structural details underlying mitosis, and of channel-forming proteins in biological membranes. Further applications would encompass all of the sciences, engineering, process control in the semiconductor and magnetic data storage industries, in fact wherever light microscopy of unprecedented high resolution can be of value.
