Electronic Speckle Pattern Interferometry for Life Science

Classical cancer treatments involve surgery, radiation and chemotherapy, while newer treatments like immune therapy and heat are still in the process of being developed while already being applied. All cancer treatment aims for killing the cancer cells while not harming the healthy cells, while with all classical cancer treatments this is difficult to realize. In most cases also the healthy cells are effected negatively, leaving the patient behind with unwanted side effects harming his overall health status up to the point when the treatment has to be terminated. Another idea was to treat cancer with sound, claiming there is an “Eigen frequency” typical for cancer cells while the healthy cells might have a different “Eigen frequency”. According to this idea the cancer cells could be destroyed by exposing healthy and cancer cells to appropriate ultrasound while just the cancer cells are destroyed, leaving behind the healthy cells unharmed. Still unresolved is the question how to determine any kind of “Eigen frequency” for biological cells. The approach shown here to determine such Eigen frequency is based on Electronic Speckle Pattern Interferometry. Thus a Micro Speckle Interferometer was developed and applied to mesoscopic and microscopic inorganic MEMS. The results were transferred to inorganic samples as well as transparent micro-sized samples like water droplets and finally to micro-sized biological samples for static as well as dynamic Micro-ESPI on transparent biological samples down to the optical resolution limit.