CDI Type I: Real-time adaptive imaging algorithms for atomic force microscopy

University Of California-Los Angeles, Los Angeles CA

Investigators

Abstract

AWARD Proposal Title: Real-time adaptive imaging algorithms for atomic force microscopy Principal Investigator: Bertozzi, Andrea Institution: University of California-Los Angeles Proposal No: 0940417 This research project forges an interdisciplinary intellectual partnership between UCLAs Applied Mathematics program and Lawrence Berkeley Laboratorys Molecular Foundry, with the goal of designing transformative computation-based methods for real-time data acquisition and analysis in atomic force microscopy (AFM). The work combines expertise in (a) high-precision AFM instrumentation for imaging and force spectroscopy experiments, (b) the pioneering use of AFM to investigate the dynamics of oxidation, crystallization, and assembly of inorganic and macromolecular systems with (c) advanced algorithms for real-time mobile data acquisition and state-of-the-art image processing algorithms. The research focuses on two case studies: Potassium bromide oxidation, an important process in understanding tropospheric chemistry, and S-layer protein array formation on lipid bilayers, an in vitro model of microbial membrane development. Both problems have dynamic behavior on a time-scale too fast for current AFM imaging technologies. The work involves state-of-the-art algorithm development involving compressive sensing, image inpainting, image segmentation and deblurring, combined with real-time tip steering using ideas from recent work in control theory and mobile sensors. In addition, to the new algorithm development, the project addresses new scientific results for the example problems, and a modular software package for control of the AFM sensor that could be adapted for diverse AFM imaging applications. The research program involves the training of two graduate students, one in mathematics and one in microscopy, in cutting-edge interdisciplinary science. Additionally, undergraduate students are involved in algorithm software and hardware implementation. The impact on science is profound namely the ability to observe biological and chemical processes at higher speeds at the level of detail of AFM and to further increase the resolution and imaging power of existing AFM hardware technologies, through software and control methodologies. The Molecular Foundry is a user facility providing support to nanoscience researchers in academic, government and industrial laboratories around the world. Thus, advances made through this research program have an immediate user audience through the many researchers visiting the Foundry. Technology developed under this research program is also disseminated to commercial AFM manufacturers.