Tom Defanti, Univ. of California, San Diego

Abstract: Super resolution tiled displays are now real products and the bezels have almost disappeared in 2D displays. 3D (with and without glasses) is finally here. The networks, switches, and interface cards are affordable at 10Gb/s, HD video-conferencing is easy to make work and software to integrate it all is propagating quickly.  So, you don't need to take off your  shoes, sweater, mobile phone, and belt to "go there" anymore to work with your colleagues. And, enough energy can be saved with one long-distance multi-person meeting to run these displays for a year!  The OptIPortal is a tiled display that is the visual interface to the OptIPuter, a global-scale computing system tied together by tens of gigabits of networking. The main point of the OptIPuter project is to investigate a "future" in which networking is not a bottleneck to local, regional, national and international computing and collaboration. OptIPortals are designed to allow collaborative sharing of extremely high-resolution graphic output, as well as video streams, including multi-way video teleconferencing. The newest OptIPortals typically consist of an array of 4-to-100 digital signage HDTV panels using nearly borderless displays in arrays. Some recent and planned installations and usage cases will be shown, including the newly developed OptIPortables, rapidly deployable display systems in wheeled road cases that can be rolled out to a site and installed in less than an hour. Also shown will be the future of the CAVE immersive 3D environments as 3D displays have emerged as consumer technology.
 
Biography: Thomas A. DeFanti, PhD, is a research scientist at the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2) at the University of California, San Diego. He is principal investigator of the US NSF International Research Network Connections Program TransLight/StarLight project, and he is principal investigator of the US NSF GreenLight Instrument project and the KAUST Calit2 OptIPresence Project. DeFanti is an internationally recognized expert in computer graphics since the early 1970s. DeFanti has amassed a number of credits, including: use of his lab's hardware and software for the computer animation produced for the 1977 "Star Wars" movie; recipient of the 1988 ACM Outstanding Contribution Award; and appointed an ACM Fellow in 1994. He also shares recognition along with EVL director Daniel J. Sandin for conceiving the CAVE virtual reality theater in 1991.

Lihong Wang, Washington Univ. in St. Louis

Abstract: We develop photoacoustic imaging technologies for in vivo early-cancer detection and functional or molecular imaging by physically combining non-ionizing electromagnetic and ultrasonic waves. Unlike ionizing x-ray radiation, non-ionizing electromagnetic waves—such as optical and radio waves—pose no health hazard and reveal new contrast mechanisms. Unfortunately, electromagnetic waves in the non-ionizing spectral region do not penetrate biological tissue in straight paths as x-rays do. Consequently, high-resolution tomography based on non-ionizing electromagnetic waves alone—such as confocal microscopy, two-photon microscopy, and optical coherence tomography—is limited to superficial imaging within approximately one optical transport mean free path (~1 mm in the skin) of the surface of scattering biological tissue. Ultrasonic imaging, on the contrary, provides good image resolution but has strong speckle artifacts as well as poor contrast in early-stage tumors. Ultrasound-mediated imaging modalities that combine electromagnetic and ultrasonic waves can synergistically overcome the above limitations. The hybrid modalities provide relatively deep penetration at high ultrasonic resolution and yield speckle-free images with high electromagnetic contrast.
         
In photoacoustic computed tomography, a pulsed broad laser beam illuminates the biological tissue to generate a small but rapid temperature rise, which leads to emission of ultrasonic waves due to thermoelastic expansion. The short-wavelength pulsed ultrasonic waves are then detected by unfocused ultrasonic transducers. High-resolution tomographic images of optical  contrast are then formed through image reconstruction. Endogenous optical contrast can be used to quantify the concentration of total hemoglobin, the oxygen saturation of hemoglobin, and the concentration of melanin. Melanoma and other tumors have been imaged in vivo. Exogenous optical contrast can be used to provide molecular imaging and reporter gene imaging.
             
In photoacoustic microscopy, a pulsed laser beam is focused into the biological tissue to generate ultrasonic waves, which are then detected with a focused ultrasonic transducer to form a depth resolved 1D image. Raster scanning yields 3D high-resolution tomographic images. Super-depths beyond the optical diffusion limit have been reached with high spatial resolution. Thermoacoustic tomography is similar to photoacoustic tomography except that low-energy microwave pulses, instead of laser pulses, are used. Although long-wavelength microwaves diffract rapidly, the short-wavelength microwave-induced ultrasonic waves provide high spatial resolution, which breaks through the microwave diffraction limit. Microwave
contrast measures the concentrations of water and ions. The annual conference on this topic has been doubling in size approximately every three years since 2003 and has become the largest in SPIE’s Photonics West as of 2009.

Biography: Lihong Wang earned his Ph.D. degree at Rice University, Houston, Texas under the tutelage of Robert Curl, Richard Smalley, and Frank Tittel and currently holds the Gene K. Beare Distinguished Professorship of Biomedical Engineering at
Washington University in St. Louis. His book entitled“Biomedical Optics: Principles and Imaging,” one of the first textbooks in the field, won the 2010 Joseph W. Goodman Book Writing Award. He also coauthored a book on polarization and edited the first book on photoacoustic tomography. Professor Wang has published 255+ peer-reviewed journal articles with an h-index of 52 and delivered 280+ keynote, plenary, or invited talks. His laboratory invented or discovered functional photoacoustic tomography, dark-field confocal photoacoustic microscopy (PAM), optical-resolution PAM, photoacoustic Doppler effect, photoacoustic reporter gene imaging, focused scanning microwave-induced thermoacoustic tomography, the universal photoacoustic or thermoacoustic reconstruction algorithm, frequency-swept ultrasound-modulated optical tomography, time-reversed ultrasonically encoded (TRUE) optical focusing, sonoluminescence tomography, Mueller-matrix optical coherence tomography, optical coherence computed tomography, and oblique-incidence reflectometry. In particular, PAM broke through the long-standing diffusion limit to the penetration of conventional optical microscopy and reached super-depths for noninvasive biochemical, functional, and molecular imaging in living tissue at high resolution. His Monte Carlo model of photon transport in scattering media is used worldwide. He has received 28 research grants as the principal investigator with a cumulative budget of over $31M. Professor Wang is a Fellow of the AIMBE (American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering), OSA (Optical Society of America), IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers), and SPIE (Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers). He is the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Biomedical Optics. He chairs the annual conference on Photons plus Ultrasound, and chaired the 2010 Gordon Conference on Lasers in Medicine and Biology and the 2010 OSA Topical Meeting on Biomedical Optics. He is a chartered member on an NIH Study Section. Wang serves as the founding chairs of the scientific advisory boards for two companies commercializing his inventions. He received NIH’s FIRST and NSF’s CAREER awards. He was awarded the C. E. K. Mees Medal for “seminal contributions to photoacoustic tomography and Monte Carlo modeling of photon transport in biological tissues and for leadership in the international biophotonics community.” 
      

Connie J. Chang-Hasnain, Univ. of California, Berkeley

Abstract: A new concept of dielectric subwavelength grating has emerged. This grating leverages a high contrast in refractive indices for the grating medium and its surrounding (and hence the name). I will discuss how HCG can manipulate light to achieve various extraordinary properties. I will discuss various designs to yield a very broadband, high-reflectivity mirror for light incident in surface-normal direction and at a glancing angle, ultra high-Q resonator with surface-normal output and ultralow loss hollow-core waveguide. I will discuss using HCG as a platform for many useful applications in lasers, filters, waveguides, bio/chemical and gas sensors and detectors. 

Biography: Connie Chang-Hasnain is the John R. Whinnery Chair Professor in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences Department at the University of California, Berkeley.  She received her Ph.D. from the same university in 1987. Prior to joining the Berkeley faculty, Dr. Chang-Hasnain was a member of the technical staff at Bellcore (1987–1992) and an Assistant professor of Electrical Engineering at Stanford University (1992–1996).  She currently serves as Chair of the Nanoscale Science and Engineering (NSE) Graduate Group and is Chang Jiang Scholar Endowed Chair Professor at Tsinghua University, China since 2009.
Prof. Chang-Hasnain’s research interests have been in vertical cavity surface emitting lasers, MEMS tunable optoelectronic devices and nanostructured   materials and nano-optoelectronic devices.  She received numerous awards for her research contributions, including 2011 IEEE David Sarnoff Award for for pioneering contributions to VCSEL arrays and tunable VCSELs, 2009 Guggenheim  Memorial Fellowship, 2009 Humboldt Research Award, 2007 Nick Holonyak Jr Award from the Optical Society of America, and 2003 IEEE William Streifer Scientific Achievement Award. Since 2007, she is the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Lightwave Technology.

Abstract: The integration of many photonic components on a single chip has been shown to improve the efficiency of both transmitter and receiver systems as well as their size, weight and overall power consumption. As the technology has improved the performance is now also exceeding that of discrete solutions in   many cases. Many years ago a key driver for photonic integration was the enhanced receiver sensitivity achievable in coherent communication systems. Somewhat ironically, as the need for more spectral efficiency, spectral selectivity, overall system efficiency, and cost have become critical issues today, coherent communication and sensor systems now again look to integrated coherent solutions. In this presentation we explore recent  developments.

Biography: Larry A. Coldren is the Fred Kavli Professor of Optoelectronics and Sensors and Acting Richard A. Auhll Dean of Engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara, CA.  After receiving his Ph.D. Electrical Engineering from Stanford University and spending 13 years in research at Bell Laboratories, he joined UC-Santa Barbara in 1984 where he now holds appointments in Materials and Electrical & Computer Engineering.  In 1990 he co-founded Optical Concepts,  later acquired as Gore Photonics, to develop novel VCSEL technology; and in 1998 he co-founded Agility Communications, later acquired by JDSU, to develop widely-tunable integrated transmitters.
At Bell Labs Coldren worked on surface-acoustic-wave filters and later on tunable coupled-cavity lasers using novel reactive-ion etching (RIE) technology. At UCSB he continued work on multiple-section tunable lasers, in 1988 inventing the widely-tunable multi-element mirror concept, which is now used in numerous commercial products.  Near this same time, he also made seminal contributions to efficient vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) designs that continue to be implemented in practical devices.  More recently, Prof. Coldren’s group has developed high-performance InP-based photonic integrated circuits (PICs) as well as high-speed VCSELs, and they continue to advance the underlying materials growth and fabrication technologies.  
Professor Coldren has authored or co-authored over a thousand journal and conference papers, a number of book chapters, a textbook, and has been issued 64 patents. He has presented dozens of invited and plenary talks at major conferences, he is a Fellow of the IEEE, OSA, and IEE, a recipient of the 2004 John Tyndall and 2009 Aron Kressel Awards, and a member of the National Academy of Engineering.