Ultrafast lasers provide unique opportunities for both imaging and surgery: (a) Example of curvature mapping using intrinsic second harmonic generation in hard tissue. (b) Precision of laser ablation compared to manual removal. (c) In vivo two-photon imaging of blood vessels (red) and astrocytes (green) in mouse brain. I propose to further develop this technique to enable precision surgical procedures in the clinic.

PET imaging has advanced with time-of-flight technology, enhancing image quality by refining coincidence time resolution (CTR). I aim to further improve CTR by targeting the immediate generation of charge carriers as ionizing radiation interacts with the detector crystal, inducing ultrafast modulations in optical properties, as evidenced in simulations (a, b) and experiments (c). A 10-picosecond CTR could significantly streamline reconstruction, yielding clearer PET images (lower panel, courtesy of https://the10ps-challenge.org/).