Cellular Features Revealed by Transverse Laser Modes in Frequency Domain

Area of Science:

• Biophotonics
• Cellular Biophysics
• Laser Physics

Background:

• Biological lasers using Fabry-Pérot (FP) cavities show promise for detecting subtle biological changes.
• Transverse laser modes from cells act as unique fingerprints but are complex, limiting their use.
• Current limitations hinder practical biomedical applications of cellular lasers.

Purpose of the Study:

• To elucidate the mechanism governing transverse mode frequency distributions in cellular lasers.
• To establish a link between cell spatial information (e.g., curvature) and spectral information of transverse modes.
• To enable new biophotonic applications through enhanced cellular laser analysis.

Main Methods:

• Theoretical modeling to correlate cell cross-sectional morphology with transverse mode lasing frequencies.
• Experimental investigation of transverse mode spectral characteristics in live and fixed cells.
• Hyperspectral imaging to interpret spatial cell information via spectral data.

Main Results:

• A key mechanism governing transverse mode frequency distributions in cellular lasers was identified.
• Spectral information of transverse modes was successfully correlated with cell morphology and curvature.
• The approach was validated by studying cell adhesion and classifying cells from rat cortices.

Conclusions:

• Cellular lasers can provide spatial information about cells through their transverse modes.
• This work opens new avenues for subcellular analysis in biophotonics.
• The findings facilitate practical applications in biomedicine, including cell adhesion studies and classification.