Search research articles

ABOUT JoVE

Overview Leadership Blog JoVE Help Center

AUTHORS

Publishing Process Editorial Board Scope & Policies Peer Review FAQ Submit

LIBRARIANS

Testimonials Subscriptions Access Resources Library Advisory Board FAQ

RESEARCH

JoVE Journal Methods Collections JoVE Encyclopedia of Experiments Archive

EDUCATION

JoVE Core JoVE Business JoVE Science Education JoVE Lab Manual Faculty Resource Center Faculty Site

Terms & Conditions of Use

Related Concept Videos

Total Internal Reflection Fluorescence Microscopy

Total Internal Reflection Fluorescence Microscopy

Total internal reflection fluorescence microscopy or TIRF is an advanced microscopic technique used to visualize fluorophores in samples close to a solid surface with a higher refractive index, such as a glass coverslip. TIRF only allows fluorophores in proximity to the solid surface to be excited. When light from a medium with a lower refractive index (such as air) hits the glass coverslip at a critical angle, the light undergoes total internal reflection stead of passing through the glass.

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by

Same author

Piperine inhibits NLRP3 inflammasome activation and alleviates inflammatory disease.

Phytomedicine : international journal of phytotherapy and phytopharmacology·2026

Same author

Multimodal atlas of single neuron metabolic electrophysiological coupling uncovers circadian rewiring.

iScience·2026

Same author

Pathogenic variants in ACTRT3 lead to male infertility characterized by fertilization defects.

Human reproduction (Oxford, England)·2026

Same author

Automated HER2 Scoring with Uncertainty Quantification Using Lensfree Holography and Deep Learning.

BME frontiers·2026

Same author

Arginine metabolism and the NF-ĸB pathway jointly regulate the airway inflammation in asthma mediated by ILC2s.

International immunopharmacology·2026

Same author

Snapshot 3D image projection using a diffractive decoder.

Light, science & applications·2026

Same journal

Concentric transmon qubit featuring fast tunability and an anisotropic magnetic dipole moment.

Applied physics letters·2026

Same journal

Wobulation using a tunable electrowetting prism applied to structured illumination microscopy.

Applied physics letters·2026

Same journal

Superconducting micro-resonator arrays with ideal frequency spacing.

Applied physics letters·2025

Same journal

Overlap junctions for high coherence superconducting qubits.

Applied physics letters·2025

Same journal

Controlling the thermal conductance of silicon nitride membranes at 100 mK temperatures with patterned metal features.

Applied physics letters·2025

Same journal

Overlap junctions for superconducting quantum electronics and amplifiers.

Applied physics letters·2025

See all related articles

Search research articles

Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jun 1, 2026

Lensfree On-chip Tomographic Microscopy Employing Multi-angle Illumination and Pixel Super-resolution

Lensfree On-chip Tomographic Microscopy Employing Multi-angle Illumination and Pixel Super-resolution

Published on: August 16, 2012

Optofluidic Tomography on a Chip.

Serhan O Isikman, Waheb Bishara, Hongying Zhu

Applied Physics Letters

|May 18, 2011

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

We developed lensfree optofluidic tomography on a chip for high-resolution imaging of flowing samples. This technique reconstructs 3D images of microscopic objects, demonstrated with C. elegans.

More Related Videos

High-Throughput Total Internal Reflection Fluorescence and Direct Stochastic Optical Reconstruction Microscopy Using a Photonic Chip

High-Throughput Total Internal Reflection Fluorescence and Direct Stochastic Optical Reconstruction Microscopy Using a Photonic Chip

Published on: November 16, 2019

Microfluidic Imaging Flow Cytometry by Asymmetric-detection Time-stretch Optical Microscopy (ATOM)

Microfluidic Imaging Flow Cytometry by Asymmetric-detection Time-stretch Optical Microscopy (ATOM)

Published on: June 28, 2017

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: Jun 1, 2026

Lensfree On-chip Tomographic Microscopy Employing Multi-angle Illumination and Pixel Super-resolution

Lensfree On-chip Tomographic Microscopy Employing Multi-angle Illumination and Pixel Super-resolution

Published on: August 16, 2012

High-Throughput Total Internal Reflection Fluorescence and Direct Stochastic Optical Reconstruction Microscopy Using a Photonic Chip

High-Throughput Total Internal Reflection Fluorescence and Direct Stochastic Optical Reconstruction Microscopy Using a Photonic Chip

Published on: November 16, 2019

Microfluidic Imaging Flow Cytometry by Asymmetric-detection Time-stretch Optical Microscopy (ATOM)

Microfluidic Imaging Flow Cytometry by Asymmetric-detection Time-stretch Optical Microscopy (ATOM)

Published on: June 28, 2017

Area of Science:

Optics
Microfluidics
Biomedical Imaging

Background:

Lensfree imaging offers a simplified approach to microscopy.
Optofluidic devices integrate fluid handling with optical components.
Tomography enables 3D reconstruction of sample structures.

Purpose of the Study:

To demonstrate optofluidic tomography on a chip using lensfree holographic microscopy.
To develop a method for high-resolution 3D imaging of objects in microfluidic channels.

Main Methods:

Utilized lensfree holography with a partially coherent light source and a digital sensor array.
Rotated the light source to capture holograms from multiple angles.
Employed pixel super-resolution techniques for high-resolution image reconstruction.
Computed tomograms using filtered back-projection of reconstructed lensfree images.

Main Results:

Achieved lensfree tomographic imaging on a microfluidic chip.
Successfully reconstructed high-resolution transmission images from multiple viewing directions.
Demonstrated the proof-of-concept by imaging Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans).

Conclusions:

Lensfree optofluidic tomography is a viable technique for on-chip 3D imaging.
The method enables optical sectioning of flowing microscopic objects.
This approach has potential applications in biological and microfluidic studies.