The Biophotonics and Biophysics group operates in the Department of Physics of the University of Milano-Bicocca. The research interests and application goals are in the field of the optical microscopy with non-linear excitation, in the use of gold and silver nanoparticles for biomedical applications and in the fluorescence image correlation microscopy. All these research fields are devoted to the study of the cellular dynamics and the interactions between nanoparticles and living cells. The group runs also a facility for optical nanoscopy with 70 nm optical resolution in the focal plane.

Lab equipment:

• Olympus microscope for non-linear excitation microscopy in-vivo;
• Nikon microscope for non-linear excitation spectroscopy;
• STED microscope for optical nanoscopy (70nm resolution);
• Facilities for the optical and physical characterization of nanoparticles and organic solutions (spectrophotometers Vis-NIR, Dynamic Light Scattering, Time resolved fluorimeters)

The image reports a portion of a rat liver imaged by in-vivo two-photon microscopy. The liver sinusoids and (white) quantum dots injected in the blood flow are visible. In the colored Region of Interests the flow speed has been measured as a function of time and reported in the inset C.