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Nonlinear Bioimaging LAB

People

Teaching / Enseignement

Ongoing Projects

H2020-ICT-2020-2 FAIR CHARM (coordinator)

WEAVE project : ADAPT  (start 2023)

SNF/ANR DARE: Deep And REsolved

Interreg Switzerland-France OncoNanoScreen

Skin cancer (with CHUV)

UniGE INNOGAP tech-transfer fund

Research

Harmonic Nanoparticles

The term Harmonic Nanoparticles (HNPs) indicates a family of metal oxide nanocrystals possessing appealing optical properties aside from classical luminescence. In fact, because of the lack of inversion symmetry in their crystal structure, these materials display high nonlinear optical response. In particular, the lowest nonlinear term of their nonlinear susceptibility, χ⁽²⁾, is non vanishing differently from the case of isotropic materials. For this reason, they are primarily employed in imaging applications based on second harmonic generation. We have recently shown that third and higher harmonic generation and frequency mixings are also detectable under standard imaging conditions for some of these materials, hence the name.

The distinctive features of HNPs as opposed to luminescent probes include their fully coherent emission, quasi-instantaneous response, the absence of bleaching/blinking when excited outside the absorption bands of the material, and spectral flexibility (spanning from the ultraviolet to the infrared). This last asset is particularly appealing for bio-imaging applications, as HNPs allows imaging beyond the “classical” tissue transparency window (NIR I: 650-950 nm), in the newly addressed NIR II (1100-1350 nm) and NIR III (1600-1870 nm) windows. Working in these spectral regions enables sensibly deeper imaging penetration because of reduced scattering at longer wavelengths.

We have shown that the simultaneous detection of multiple harmonics from the same nano-object benefits to selectivity in imaging and sensing applications. Our present research spans from fundamental optical characterization to bio-oriented demonstrations such as cell tracking in tissue and physiological fluids, with a specific focus on regenerative medicine and immunotherapy applications.

Further readings

• Campargue, G., La Volpe, L., Giardina, G., Gaulier, G., Lucarini, F., Gautschi, I., Le Dantec, R., Staedler, D., Diviani, D., Mugnier, Y. and Wolf, J.P., Bonacina, L. Multiorder Nonlinear Mixing in Metal Oxide Nanoparticles, Nano Letters 2020., 20(12): 8725-8732.

• Bonacina, L.; Brevet, P.-F.; Finazzi, M.; Celebrano, M. Harmonic Generation at the Nanoscale. Journal of Applied Physics 2020, 127 (23): 230901.

• Dubreil,L.; Leroux,I.; Ledevin,M.; Schleder,C.; Lagalice,L.; Lovo, C.; Fleurisson, R.; Passemard, S.; Kilin, V.; Gerber-Lemaire, S.; Colle, M.-A.; Bonacina, L.*; Rouger, K., Multi-Harmonic Imaging in the Second Near-Infrared Window of Nanoparticle-Labeled Stem Cells as Monitoring Tool in Tissue Depth, ACS Nano 2017, 11 (7): 6672-6681

• Rogov, A.; Mugnier, Y.; Bonacina, L. Harmonic nanoparticles: noncentrosymmetric metal oxides for nonlinear optics. J. Opt. 2015, 17 (3): 033001.

Scientific Articles at UniGE

Scientific Articles with Previous Affiliations

• BONACINA, Luigi et al. The ultrafast structural response of solid parahydrogen: A complementary experimental/simulation investigation. In : The Journal of Chemical Physics, 2006, 125 (5), 054507

• BONACINA, Luigi et al. Time-resolved photodynamics of triangular-shaped silver nanoplates. In : Nano Letters, 2006, 6 (1), 7-10

2005

• BONACINA, Luigi et al. Lattice response of quantum solids to an impulsive local perturbation. In : Physical Review Letters, 2005, 95 (1), 015301

2004

• HELBING, Jan et al. Time-resolved visible and infrared study of the cyano complexes of myoglobin and of hemoglobin I from Lucina Pectinata. In : Biophysical journal, 2004, 87 (3), 1881-1891

2003

• VIGLIOTTI, Franco et al. Ultrafast structural dynamics in electronically excited solid neon. I. Real-time probing of the electronic bubble formation. In : Physical Review B, 2003, 67 (11)

2002

• VIGLIOTTI, Franco et al. Ultrafast expansion and vibrational coherences of electronicBubbles' in solid neon. In : Chemical Physics Letters, 2002, 362 (1-2), 31-38

• VIGLIOTTI, Franco et al. Structural dynamics in quantum solids. II. Real-time probing of the electronic bubble formation in solid hydrogens. In : The Journal of Chemical Physics, 2002, 116 (11), 4553-4562

2000

• BONACINA, Luigi et al. Dynamics of a coherently driven micromaser by the Monte Carlo wavefunction approach. In : Journal of Optics B: Quantum and Semiclassical Optics, 2000, 2 (4), 490