New technique to study ultrasmall particles in cells

Researchers from IIT Madras and IISER Kolkata have developed a method to detect minute quantities of chemicals in solution.

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They use a variation of absorption spectroscopy that surpasses the systemic limits imposed by conventional absorption spectroscopy.

With this technique, they can, in principle, illuminate the insides of cells and detect minuscule quantities of substances present there. The work was published in Nanoscale.

Absorption spectroscopy is a tool to detect the presence of elements in a medium. Light is shone on the sample, and after it passes through the sample is examined using a spectroscope.

Usually in absorption spectroscopy, the principle used is that light because of its wavelike nature, shows diffraction patterns, that is, dark and light fringes, when it scatters off any object. A related concept called the Abbe criterion sets a natural limit on the size of the object being studied.