Title: Autofocus of Imaging Ellipsometry

Biography:

Abstract

Through polarized light interacting with the sample, imaging ellipsometry is capable of studying semi-transparent biological cells microscopically and it is possible to find applications in marker-free non-destructive disease diagnosis. Often a living biological cell is sensitive to environmental conditions and fast measurement is preferred. Fast and accurate locating of the focal plane is very important for biosensing. By analyzing our previous published through-focus ellipsometry images for S. mutant cells on Au film, we have found an efficient method of locating the focal plane position, i.e., through edge detection of the cells in ellipsometry images. The method is not sample-dependent. As the edges are decided only by the samples’ own features, the method is very robust against noise or small shifts of images. It is easy to use without the need to choose a threshold value as in the Laplace filtering method. The method can be useful for bio-sensing applications.