NanoPlasmonics, Microphotonics & Imaging

Research that includes:

  • Polymer, printed optical lenslet arrays
  • Microfluidic tuneable photopolymer lenses
  • Optical switches and planar lightwave MEMS
  • Vertically integrated microconfocal arrays
  • Bio-inspired integration of tuneable polymer optics with imaging electronics

BPN788: MEMS-Actuated Grating-Based Optical Phased Array for LIDAR

Xiaosheng Zhang
2019

Optical phased array (OPA) devices that uses diffraction to steer an optical beam have found applications ranging from light detection and ranging (LiDAR), free-space optical (FSO) communications, optical switches, holographic display, biomedical imaging, etc. We aim to integrate the OPA system into the application of automobile navigation, which is currently primarily dominated by opto-mechanical scanning based systems, which are usually bulky and relatively slow thus cannot provide the steering speeds and versatility necessary for many applications. Traditional OPAs are usually...

BPN809: Online Optical Regulation and Photocurrent Sensor for Monitoring Microalgal Bioreactor System

Wonseok Kim
Youngseop Lee
2019

Optogenetic technology, which utilizes light to control genetically encoded light sensitive ion channels and pumps, has made a significant impact on neuroscience and neurotechnology since it allows to modulate selective neurons. Even though it is an ideal technology for numerous biological researches, irreversible and permanent gene modifications of biological tissues by lentriviral vectors in optogenetics hinder many real...

BPN397: Electrothermally-Actuated Free-Space Board-To-Board Optical Interconnect With Zero Power Hold

Jeffrey B. Chou
K. Yu
2010

Free-space optical interconnect using arrays of vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) and photoreceivers can significantly increase the board-to-board interconnect bandwidth, relieving the bottleneck of traditional backplane systems in computer servers. However, critical alignment errors, due to insertion variation, have prevented the deployment of such a technology. We present an adaptive free-space optical interconnect using electrothermal MEMS rotational lens scanners with zero power hold to circumvent such difficulties. Previous groups have attempted to adaptively...