Nanotechnology Now Home > Press > Nanophotonics enhanced coverslip for phase imaging in biology a The nanophotonics enhanced coverslip (NEC) adds phase imaging capability to a normal microscope coverslip, thereby shrinking bulky phase-imaging methods down to the size of a chip. The less than 200 nm thick design consists of a subwavelength spaced grating on top of an optically thin film, supported by a glass substrate. b Exemplary demonstration of phase-imaging of human cancer cells (HeLa cells) using the NEC. By placing the Petri dish containing the cell culture directly on top of the NEC, pseudo 3D images of the cells are created. The obtained images are similar to those obtained by the conventional phase-imaging technique of differential interference contrast (DIC) microscopy. In the reference image, recorded without the NEC, the cells are mostly invisible. c Use of the NEC device not only enabled visualization of the general shape of the cell, but also features inside of the cell nucleus (left). This was confirmed via comparison with images obtained via conventional DIC microscopy (middle) and fluorescence microscopy (right).