Bio- and Nano-Photonics

Living cells are fascinating microsystems. Therefore we develop novel techniques for laser optical microscopy and optical force based applications, to investigate the biophysics of living cells and of bio-mimetic systems based on their nano-mechanics and thermal fluctuations.

Research Projects:

Nano-mechanics of helical bacteria in optical line traps
Project 1:  Spiroplasms – propagation dynamics of the simplest form of life, trapped and scanned in a light tube

Mechanics of phagocytosis
Project 1: The nano-mechanics of phagocytosis
Project 2: Cargo-transport by coupled molecular motors
Project 3: Membrane biophysics with giant unilamelar vesicles (GUV)

Dynamic Particle interactions
Project 1: Interferometric tracking of dynamic particle interactions with scanning line optical tweezers.

Momentum transport through bio-polymer networks
Project 1: We investigate viscoelastic properties of single and multiple microtubules coupled by thermally fluctuating trapped beads as nucleation sites.

Dynamics of MREB filaments inside Bacillus Subtilis
Project 1: With fast SR techniques we investigate cytoskeletal MreB filaments. These move through poorly understood mechanisms underneath the membrane of rod -shaped bacteria and help to organize the cell wall.

Super-resolution microscopy
Project 1: Structured illumination microscopy
Project 2: Rotating coherent scattering (ROCS) microscopy

Light-sheet microscopy (LSM) with self-reconstructing beams
Project 1: LSM using holographically shaped beams
Project 2: LSM using two photon Bessel beams
Project 3: LSM using Bessel beams and the STED principle

Surface Imaging with optically trapped probes
Project 1: Surface scanning with optically trapped probes in the presence of phase disturbing structures.

Plasmonic coupling of two optically trapped particles
Project 1:

Simulations
Project 1: Wave optics
Project 2: Brownian Dynamics