The goal of these talks is to share the exciting things that are happening quietly in the OSC laboratories with the rest of the community. Everyone (students, staff, faculty) is encouraged to attend, as the talks should be given at a level to be enjoyed by non-specialists. We encourage presentations from OSC students, faculty and staff. This is an excellent opportunity to share your enthusiasm with a wider group. Please contact Garam Yun(gyun@optics.arizona.edu), Tim Renkoski (trenkoski@optics.arizona.edu), Boris Glebov (borisg@email.arizona.edu) for more information. Speakers for Fall 2009 All events start at noon in Room 410 and pizza/refreshments will be served Friday, September 4th: SOCk (Student Chapter) events  LBT Trip Committee, Fall 2009
 SWSOC (South West Student Optics Conference) Committee, Summer 2010
 Sports Friday - Community Speakers
 TVHH - Journal Club (?)
- Other social activities
 Outreach Activities (Brittany Lynn)  WIO activities
Friday, September 18th:  Leonardo MontillaTitle: Real-time Pulse Echo and Photoacoustic Imaging Using an Ultrasound Array and Inline Reflective Illumination
Photoacoustic imaging
requires pulsed light to be absorbed by the area of interest and the induced
acoustic waves detected by a distant ultrasound transducer. Difficulty exists
in illuminating thick samples for photoacoustic imaging because light has to be
directed around the transducer. We present a method of efficiently delivering
light around a linear array transducer. The method exploits a prism to transmit
light while reflecting the acoustic waves. The measured pulse echo spatial
dimensions (-6dB) of 0.5 mm graphite rods submerged in water with the device
was .40 mm x .45 mm (axial x lateral). As this is close to the nominal spatial
dimensions of .35 mm x .45 mm, the introduction of the prism did not degrade
the image quality significantly. A system with these capabilities may not only
facilitate small animal photoacoustic imaging, but it may also promote
transition of this modality into clinical practice.
Ragnar Olafsson
Title: Ultrasound Current Source Density Imaging of a time-varying current field
in a multielectrode nerve chamber
Interventional neurosurgery requires precise mapping of cortical
activity prior to resection to minimize the loss of function. This
laborious and time consuming mapping procedure is performed with
surface and penetrating electrodes. Ultrasound Current Source Density
Imaging (UCSDI) is a new imaging technique, developed at the
Experimental Ultrasound and Neural Engineering Laboratory (EUNIL) that
can potentially improve this procedure. UCSDI maps electrical current
distributions based on the acoustoelectric (AE) effect, an interaction
between ultrasound and electricity. The potential advantages of UCSDI
are high spatial resolution defined by the ultrasonic point spread
function, automatic registration to B-mode ultrasound, and fast mapping
with electronically steered beams. This talk will describe UCSDI and
recent efforts at EUNIL to use it to map bioelectric activity of
peripheral nerves.
Friday, October 2nd:  Stefano Young Title: Image Quality in Medical Imaging: Sending Your Message with Numbers In
medical and other types of imaging, statements about image quality
often lack a rigorous proof or quantitative explanation of their
validity. Some researchers believe that a pair of images, coupled with
qualitative statements like “As shown in the figure, our system offers better image quality”,
is a sufficient demonstration of improvement. However, to
systematically improve the imaging capabilities of the science
community, researchers need methods for quantifying image quality in
complex imaging systems involving many variables. The medical image
quality community has developed methods for quantitative or
“task-based” image quality assessment; and image scientists in our lab
have demonstrated application of these methods to complex medical
imaging problems. For example, I collaborated with the Food & Drug
Administration’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH) to
develop methods for quantifying image quality in digital breast
tomosynthesis (DBT) systems. This presentation addresses problems with
the current image quality paradigm, explains fundamental concepts in
task-based image quality assessment, and provides an example
application of these concepts to the complex problem of DBT.
In
general, when reading or writing imaging papers on topics such as DBT,
researchers should insist on a quantitative, task-based approach to
making statements about image quality. This will provide the imaging
community with consistent tools for measuring the performance of
imaging systems. Applying task-based assessment principles to DBT, we
quantified the image quality for an idealized system while accounting
for different sources of variability in the imaging process.
Specifically, we estimated image quality metrics for clinically
significant hardware acquisition parameters such as angular span,
number of angular projections, and study dose while incorporating an
ensemble of randomly-generated digital patient models. Using the
example of DBT, the audience can imagine applying these task-based
assessment tools to other research problems which they encounter. The
fundamental principles for quantifying medical image quality are
established, but the imaging community needs to invest more effort in
applying these principles to novel three-dimensional imaging systems.
In future work with the CDRH, our idealized model of DBT should be
expanded to include realistic models for other sources of variability
such as x-ray scatter and detector blur. Results from future studies
could be used to inform the design of imaging hardware and software
reconstruction algorithms. Our image science group at the UA also
plans to use a task-based assessment framework to quantify the image
quality of diffuse optical imaging systems.
 Roger Zaldivar Title: 20 / 20 is not enough!
Direct measurement of ocular
light scatter can confirm the role of early cataract in the genesis of visual
symptoms. Is it possible that patients come to my office and complain that they
don’t feel comfortable with their vision despite having a 20/20 visual acuity
test? We will prove that the answer is ‘Yes’… and the main reason is that in
the early stages of cataract formation visual disturbances may appear while visual acuity in standard conditions is still preserved. So the question is… how
can we document the need for a surgery with these conditions? How do we as
surgeons prove that the patient is really uncomfortable with his vision and
needs a surgical procedure? These patients
typically complain that headlights, lamps, or sunlight may appear too bright,
with halos appearing around objects. Poor night vision, glare, double vision,
or multiple images in one eye are possible signs of early cataract, which can be
compatible with 20/20 BCVA or UCVA. In these situations, visual disturbances are caused by
crystalline lens opacity, which randomly refract and diffract the incident light
focused toward the retina.2 This effect, called intraocular scattering, reduces the patient’s quality of vision. Most of the instruments and devices that we
have measure aberrations in a very acceptable way but they don’t measure
scatter. Recently, a double-pass
aberrometry developed by Optics Engineer Pablo Artal and his coworkers was introduced
in Spain. This technique does not depend on the accuracy of the wavefront
reconstruction; it integrates higher-order aberrations and light scatter into a
prediction of retinal image quality. I m going to share some examples from the
Zaldivar Institute located in Mendoza
Argentina, where this machine is being tested and you will realize how useful
this device can be.
Friday, October 16th:  Hacene Chaouch
Internships abroad are always a unique opportunity for students. New
environment, new research topics and sometimes new friends make the
this journey a wonderful experience and undoubtedly an amazing source
of motivation and excitement. This Friday I will present my personal
experience at Deutsche Telekom in Darmstadt, Germany, and give an
overview of the work accomplished and the related theoretical and
physical investigations.
 Earl Parsons I spent this summer researching at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg
and the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light located in
Erlangen, Germany. I will speak about my experience working abroad in
these institutions and about my project with nonlinear optical loop
mirrors.
A nonlinear optical loop mirror with a bidirectional attenuator has
been used for regeneration of return to zero differential phase shift
keyed (RZ-DPSK) signals. A 2.5 ps, 10 Gb/s signal with amplitude
fluctuations of ~15% was regenerated with a negative power penalty of
~1.5 dB practically back to the quality of the undistorted reference
signal.
Friday, October 30th:  Roland Himmelhuber Rolland got an Engineering degree in Technical Chemistry from the Georg-Simon
Ohm University of Applied Sciences in 2003, In Nurenberg. He worked for
Micro Resist technology an SME, in Berlin for 1 year as Scientist, than
for 2 years as a Product Manager. His main focus was on inorganic
organic hybrid materials for passive microoptical applications. Since he
joined Nasser's group as a Ph.D. student in 2006, he has worked on non linear
polymer optical devices including device design, material
development and synthesis, micro pattering and device characterization.
Right now his special interest is on the influence of material
conductivity and thickness on poling efficiency of electro optic active
guest host systems. This talk will give an overview over several methods for micro and nano
pattering. I will discribe the basic principle behind pattering
methods, talk about common applications and cover the basic chemistry
that happens during the different pattering processes. In large parts
the use of inorganic organic hybrid materials for pattering will be
discussed. Sherry Hoskinson
Sherry
Hoskinson
Director,
McGuire Center for Entrepreneurship
Co-director,
Business / Law Exchange
The
University of Arizona
Sherry
Hoskinson is the director of The University of Arizona's McGuire Center for
Entrepreneurship (formerly the Karl Eller Center for the Study of the Private
Market Economy), housing a nationally top-ranked entrepreneurship education
program including formal degree program in entrepreneurship. Areas of focus
have spanned full responsibility for design, planning, coordination, and
implementation of the center's nationally acclaimed academic programs,
including development of new venture/innovation teaching models for award
winning McGuire Entrepreneurship Program; highly visible outreach and
development, research and scholarship, entrepreneurship awareness and promotion
activities, and activities to advance the discipline of entrepreneurship across
local and national academic and business communities. Ms. Hoskinson serves or has served on the
Executive Boards of USASBE and NCEC, is an active member of the AACSB
Entrepreneurship Affinity Group; IdeaFunding / IdeaXchange;
The University of Arizona Industry Relations Workgroup; and has served on
numerous boards of organizations, non profits, and university based projects.
During her affiliation, the McGuire Center / Karl Eller Center has been the
recipient of numerous awards and national and global top rankings.
Friday, November 13th: Justin Paul Lasers, lasers everywhere, but not a drop (Hg) to drink...yet He will give a brief motivation behind laser-cooling of mercury atoms,
and the new exciting physics that can be accessed in the process. Also he will describe the laser engineering we have been doing to create all
of our own, home-built laser sources. He will explain briefly the
connection between the two Jones labs: ultrafast optics and precision
spectroscopy. This strange "marriage" between two seemingly unrelated
disciplines has been made possible with the development of the
femtosecond frequency comb. Extending this comb from IR and visible
light into the Vacuum Ultraviolet regime could yield a new coherent
laser source to perform spectroscopy, materials science and fundamental
physics in a range previously inaccessible to lasers.  Anna-Britt Mahler Multiangle SpectroPolarimetric Imager (MSPI)The Multiangle
SpectroPolarimetric Imager (MSPI) is a candidate instrument for the
Aerosol-Cloud-Ecosystem (ACE) mission. MSPI is a multiangle,
multispectral, high-accuracy polarization imager, and is envisioned to
contain multiple cameras pointed at different view angles, having
wavebands from the UV into the SWIR, and accurate polarimetric imaging
in a subset of the bands. To achieve a degree of linear polarization
(DOLP) uncertainty of 1%, we temporally modulate the linear
polarization component of the incident Stokes vector, which allows each
detector having an analyzer to measure relative proportions of Q, U,
and total irradiance, I. Our system uses tandem photoelectric
modulators (PEMs) within a reflective design. He will report on a
sample of interesting aspects of this project, including the achromatic
quarter wave retarders, the mirror coatings, and the polarization
calibration instrumentation (the partial polarization state generator).
Friday, November 27th: Thanksgiving recess, No Community Speakers
Friday, December 4th:
Last Community Speakers of the Fall semester
 Jared Moore Advances in Adaptive X-Ray Computed TomographyCurrent medical imaging systems are designed to accommodate a wide
range of subjects. These systems select from a fixed set of operating
parameters and acquisition protocols prior to imaging a given subject.
As such, these systems are unlikely to be optimized in terms of
performing a specified imaging task for a specific subject.
My project has been the design, construction, calibration, and testing
of an “adaptive” x-ray computed tomography (CT) system. This system is
able to change its configuration in response to the subject being
imaged in order to provide a more ideal, “personalized” imaging
procedure for the subject. Various design features of this adaptive CT
system allow it to instantly negotiate the trade-offs inherent to this
particular imaging modality including resolution, field-of-view, and
radiation dose used. Due to this flexibility, the CT system is able to
take quick, preliminary image data from the subject, use this
preliminary data to adapt its configuration to best suit the subject,
and then perform a diagnostic scan.
I present on the unique design features, enabling technologies, and
special capabilities of the CT system as well as report on experiments
performed with the CT system demonstrating its ability to improve task
performance for a given subject while controlling radiation dose.
 Nathan Lewis
Speakers for Spring 2010
All events start at noon in Room 410 and pizza/refreshments will be served Possible speakers: Gaskil, Steven Permut Friday, Jan 22nd: SOCk (Student Chapter) Meeting
 Chen Li
Friday, Feb 5th :  Tyson J Ririe  Jun Zhang
Friday, Feb 19th:  Pouria Valley
 Alejandra Lopez
Friday, March 5th:  Andrew Wall
 Amy Winkler
Friday, April 2nd:
Friday, April 16th:
Friday, April 30th:
Spring 2009 Past Speakers
Friday, April 24th: Michael Runkel and Christopher Stolz Michael Runkel and Christopher J. Stolz will present National Ignition Facility: The Worlds Largest Optical System. The Community Speaker series is sponsored by our SPIE/OSA Student Optics Chapter. Abstract: The National Ignition Facility (NIF), a 192-beam fusion laser at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory was completed in January 2009 and demonstrated 1MJ of 351 nm laser light to target chamber center in March 2009. This facility was constructed to achieve fusion ignition in a quest for determining a pathway to fusion energy. The facility contains 7,456 meter-scale optics for amplification, beam steering, vacuum barriers, focusing, polarization rotation, and wavelength conversion. A multiphase program was put in place to increase the monthly optical manufacturing rate by up to 20× while simultaneously reducing cost by up to 3× through a sub-scale development, full-scale facilitization, and a pilot production phase. In order to manufacture the high quality optics at desired manufacturing rate of over 100 precision optics per month, new more deterministic advanced fabrication technologies had to be employed over those used to manufacture previous fusion lasers.
https://lasers.llnl.gov/ |
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Friday, April 10th: Dr. Irving Bigiol | This may be a first for us: Our Colloquium speaker and our Community Speakers guest are one and the same person and will present the same talk twice, doubling your opportunity to catch the presentation. We would like to express our appreciation to OSA Student Services for making Dr. Bigiol's visit a reality for the Community Speakers series and to Dr. Bigiol for agreeing to give the presentation at our Colloquium also. Dr. Irving Bigiol, Boston University Departments of Biomedical Engineering, Electrical & Computer Engineering, Physics, and Medicine, will present Elastic Light Scattering Spectroscopy for the Detection of Pre-Cancer. Stanley Pau is the host. Abstract: Optical spectroscopy mediated by fiber-optic probes can be used to perform noninvasive, or minimally-invasive, real-time assessment of tissue pathology in-situ. The method of elastic-scattering spectroscopy (ESS) is sensitive to the sub-cellular architectural changes, such as nuclear grade and nuclear to cytoplasm ratio, mitochondrial size and density, etc., which correlate with features used by pathologists when performing histological assessment. The ESS method senses those morphology changes without actually imaging the microscopic structure. Clinical demonstrations of ESS have been conducted in a variety of organ sites, with promising results, and larger-scale clinical studies are now ongoing. We have recently developed an analytical model that extracts, from the ESS spectra, the underlying physical correlates of the tissue relating to disease.
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Friday, March 27th: Mir Salek At noon, Mir Salek will present Multi-Modality MR and Optical Imaging of Window Chambers. Abstract: Window chambers are support structures that allow direct visual access to the tissue. The primary means of investigating window chambers has been optical microscopes. Our group for the first time has shown that MRI of window chambers is possible. The two modalities could cross validate each other by simultaneous imaging of the same tissue. In this talk, I briefly review MR imaging, our imaging system, and the biological phenomena that we are investigating in the tumor microenvironment using simultaneous multimodality imaging. Mir's presentation will be followed by the annual SPIE/OSA Student Chapter meeting. The meeting is open to members and non-members alike. Anyone who arrives wearing an OSC t-shirt (on sale in the Academic office for $12 or 2 for $20, cash only) will receive a prize.
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Friday, February 20th: Julian Sweet and Meredith Whitaker With the recent award of an NSF Engineering Research Center
grant, the OSC is now host to CIAN - The Center for Integrated Access
Networks. Along with nine other top research universities, we will
develop the next generation internet which will eventually provide more
than 100 Gbits/sec to the home.
Along with ample opportunities to perform research with 4
professors here at the OSC, the CIAN Student Leadership Council is
looking for enthusiastic students who want to play a part in shaping the
direction of this project. Opportunities for travel, leadership and
entrepreneurship abound, so come hear how to become involved with CIAN.
http://cian-erc.org/ |
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Friday, February 6th: Bob Breault | Bob spoke about "The Business of Optics Today and 100 New Technology Companies" Bob's presentation |
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Fall 2008 Past Speakers Friday, November 14th: Stephen O'Neil Friday, October 31st: Tim Grabowski and Dr. John Koshel | | FFRDCs, 'Real-World' Academia? | | Illumination Engineering | | | This talk will focus on the aspects of working for a Federally Funded Research and Development Center whose primary role is to support our nation's military space programs. * How The Aerospace Corporation fulfills this role. * Who our main 'customers' are and their programs. * Key differences between FFRDCs and defense contractors/government agencies. * Work environment/benefits. The second part of this talk will focus on some of the unclassified programs that I have been involved in during the past six years while at The Aerospace Corporation. Two programs in particular that I will discuss deal with the collection and analysis of hyperspectral IR data. One is the Spatially Enhanced Broadband Array Spectrograph System (SEBASS), an airborne MWIR/LWIR 256 channel LHe cooled spectrometer and the other is a Block M100 LWIR 181 channel FTIR spectrometer, a ground based single pixel instrument integrated into a raster scanning mirror assembly. | | Lit-appearance modeling is the ability to accurately visualize the appearance of an illumination system prior to time-consuming and expensive fabrication. I will display three methods of lit-appearance modeling: spot diagrams, pupil sampling, and luminance. These methods are being developed in a number of software analysis codes, which are tools of choice for illumination engineers. I will show examples from four software tools, including lightpipes, reflectors, room scenes, driving scenes, and a piece of art "from the eyes of the OpSci community." This talk provides an introduction to the rapidly growing field of illumination engineering. In the Spring 2009 semester, I will be teaching a 2-credit, project-based course on Illumination Engineering for both Undergraduates and Graduates. The goal of the course is to teach you the basic principles of illumination optics, while also instructing you how to use the currently available design tools. Contact jkoshel@optics.arizona.edu for more information about this course. |
Friday, October 17th: Jenny Flynn and Marie-Claire Strang, and Tyler Neely | | Charitable Grantseeking: An
Introduction | | Atom Optics in Flatland: Turbulence at the Intersection of Classical and Quantum Physics | | | Jenny Flynn and Marie-Claire Strang of the UA Foundation's GIFT Center
will present "Charitable Grantseeking: An Introduction." This succinct
overview of private grants, a lesser-known source of funding for many in
the university community, will focus on available resources, key
elements for working with private grantmakers, and tips for success.
| | My talk will focus on experimental developments in the Bose Einstein Condensate (BEC) lab here at the College of Optical Science. I'll briefly review what a BEC is, and what we do to make these ultracold trapped gases. Then I'll describe how we use laser light to take a normally 3-D BEC and push it towards a flat 2-D regime. With further manipulation from optical and magnetic fields, we've begun to explore the emergence of highly turbulent states of the trapped gas. This
research gives us a unique opportunity to study complicated classical and superfluid turbulence dynamics in an accessible and theoretically
tractable system. Such studies will have potentially broad impact across a variety of physical disciplines. |
Friday, October 3rd: Sheng Yuan and Robert Norwood, Ph.D.
| The Primary Aberration Coefficients of Cross-cylindrical Anamorphic Optical Systems | | Optical polymer nanocomposites |
| An anamorphic system is an imaging system contains double curvature surfaces, which have two mutually perpendicular planes of symmetry. Example of existing anamorphic system is a cross-cylindrical anamorphic system which can map a square object field into a rectangular image field. For different types of anamorphic systems, the primary aberration coefficients are different. However, method of calculating the actually primary aberration coefficients formulas for different types of anamorphic systems remains a challenge for geometrical optics research.
I will speak about our development of a method of calculating the primary aberration coefficients for cross-cylindrical anamorphic systems and we found all sixteen anamorphic primary aberration coefficients, in a form parallel to the Seidel aberrations.
| | The talk will discuss a new class of materials, polymer nanocomposites, that take advantage of advances in nanoparticle technology, optical polymers, and processing techniques. It will cover fundamental aspects such as effective medium theory and composite refractive index tuning, as well as recent advances in our laboratory in magneto-optical nanoparticle composites. |
Friday, September 19th: Russell Chipman, Ph.D. and Eduardo Bendek
Friday, September 5th: Michael Kudenov and Pierre-Alexandre Blanche, Ph.D
Archives 2007-2008 |
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Chen Li
