There seems to be no end to the stream of optical technologies hitting the market.
Many subcellular structures are oriented polymers that are spatially organized, or anisotropic.
This anisotropy causes the speed of light to vary in different spatial directions within these biomaterials, giving rise to two distinct refractive indices. CRI Inc.'s LC-PolScope systems convert a light microscope into a quantitative retardance imager. Only a few seconds are needed to obtain four differentially polarized images to generate a retardance image. The images, which have dark backgrounds similar to fluorescence-based ones, can be observed with the eyepiece or displayed on a computer monitor. 3 or nerve growth cones.