Applied Industrial Optics Day 3
By Cushla McGoverin
Day 3 was topic diverse. The first AIO session was “You Down with OCT (Yeah You Know Me)”. Yifan Jian (Simon Fraser Univ., Canada) admitted to having googled the phrase to understand the popular culture reference. The creative session names have been praised by many this meeting.
Vyas Akondi (Consejo Sup Investigaciones Cientificas, Spain) and his team are taking advantage of the critical flicker fusion frequency of the eye for their instrument that allows patients to experience simultaneous visions prior to intraocular lens implantation. Adaptive optics featured in two of the presentations this session. Yifan Jian and his group are defining the shape of their adaptive optics in a non-traditional way; rather than measuring the wavefront of the eye they are basing the shape of their adaptive optic on the resulting image in a process analogous to autofocusing on you cell phone camera. Jonas P. Kanngießer (Gottfried Wilhelm Leibiniz Universität Hanover, Germany) optimises the spatial light modulator for optimal viewing of individual structures below scattering media. Adam Wax (Lumedica, Inc., USA) demonstrated and discussed Lumedica’s $10,000 OCT system. This instrument has comparable performance to instruments available on the market at the $35,000-$40,000 price points and is possible by the innovative use of components from other industries where components are made in large quantities, e.g. the cell phone market.
“Animal Optics: The Facts of Light” was an eclectic mix of topics: through-focus scanning optical microscopy (TSOM), salmon lice, bacteria, breast cancer, and photonics in the primary industries. Ravi Kiran Attota (NIST, USA) showed us how TSOM can be used to monitor 3D line shapes as small as 16 nm. Josefine Nielsen (Technical Univ. of Denmark & FaunaPhotonics, Denmark) described how chlorophyll fluorescence and movement may be used to identify salmon lice larvae in a water column. Cushla McGoverin (me, Univ. of Auckland) spoke about using fluorescence spectroscopy to look at bacterial species. Hao Yang (Univ. of South Florida, USA) and Min-Chun Pan (National Central Univ., Taiwan) both spoke about the use of diffuse optical tomography (DOT) for the identification of tumours in breast tissue. Hao is interested in the effect of the geometry of the plates used to confine the breast for DOT and Min-Chun was able to show that absorption of malignant tumours was obviously different from breast tissue. Cather Simpson (Univ. of Auckland, New Zealand) had perhaps the most unexpected application for optics presented this meeting: the sexing of bovine sperm. In her talk she explained to us how lasers can be used to orientate, interrogate and move bovine sperm cells and how optofluidics can be used for point-of-cow testing of milk.
“Orlando: The New Silicon Valley?” began with an outline from Gordon Hogan (UCF Business Incubation Program, USA) of what the UCF Business Incubation Program has been able to achieve in its first 20 years of existence. The incubation program has been a wise investment for local governments, for every dollar they spend there is a $7 return in taxes. OptiGrate, which we heard about in day 2’s program, is actually one of the success stories of this incubator. Todays panel discussed the photonics tech climate in Orlando [Panel members: Gordon Hogan, E. Hooman Banaei (Everix Optical Filters, USA) and Alexandre Fong (HinaLea Imaging, USA)]. The low number of venture capitalists in Florida is seen as an inhibitory factor in the development of the Orlando Photonics industry. Panel members suggested that the development of a photonic technology friendly network through the organisation of start-up round tables, networking events etc. could serve to establish a culture like that of Silicon Valley. Orlando it was decided is not currently the Photonics Silicon Valley, but who knows, perhaps in the future?
