During the first part of the project, in collaboration with the HI and the Secondment lab, I designed, fabricated and characterized a novel metasurface-based illumination module. Specifically, I first developed a novel method to generate structured light distributions known as Bessel beam lattices by modulating the light wavefront phase on a single optical plane. This represented the building pillar opening the possibility to integrate the currently bulky optical layouts in small footprint configurations. Afterward, I focused on the development of a computational pipeline for translating the phase correction in a layout compatible with the metasurface technology. At the end of the first part of the project I focused on the development of a novel nanofabrication process flow to fabricate the designed optical element on dielectric metasurfaces with silicon nitride on silicon dioxide substrates. We realized that the developed approach along with the specific aims of the project, was also of interest for other fields outside the neurobiology field such as light-based material processing and optical microscopy in general.
With the prototypes designed and developed in the first part of the project, during the second part of the project at the HI, I worked on the integration of the metasurface-based optical element into a custom made up-right microscope to enable lattice light microscopy of the zebrafish brain. I challenged myself using the developed element for optical recordings of neuronal activity from a living organism. For this I learned the optical techniques and sample handling for working with calcium-based fluorescent reporters of neuronal activity. Then, I developed an experimental protocol to optimize the zebrafish larvae imaging conditions, a software framework for the acquisition and the analysis of the acquired dataset. I obtained with the developed optical element recordings of the neuronal activity with cellular resolution.
I disseminated the project results presenting my work at two international conferences with two oral presentations. Moreover, I launched and leaded a multidisciplinary program (FNIP program,
https://fnip.biomed.unipd.it/(odnośnik otworzy się w nowym oknie)) to favor a scientific exchange and networking opportunities for future collaborations.
