Confocal.nl: A New Microscope for Deep Imaging using Near Infrared

Shedding light on the depths of near infrared imaging

Remember those days at the beach? If you were like many other carefree kids at the beach your mom would probably actively remind you to apply sunscreen otherwise you would end up hurting for days. Now imagine you are a cell under a microscope, and you are getting blasted with an UV laser. This is very damaging, and as such researchers usually visualize cells for short amounts of time.

Nowadays researchers mainly use dyes in the visible spectrum of light to image cells, but these still damage living cells. Enter near infrared wavelengths: these lasers have a minimal damaging effect to tissue and can easily penetrate deep into tissues and materials. Not only will you be able to visualize objects for a longer time, you can even get deeper inside objects and gather more functional information. Not only does this technology offer promising advances in research, there are also possibilities for applications within fields such as the medical scene or even in the analysis of small surface fractures of different materials.

Our client, Confocal.nl, designed a user-friendly box that enables confocal microscopes to image with near infrared wavelengths. The goal of our project is to provide a clear overview of all the possible markets that Confocal.nl can enter with their product and an extensive analysis for the feasibility of the most promising applications together with an implementation strategy and hopefully dive deeper than ever before.

Christelle Nagabe, Alexander Janssen, Marin Baelde