San Diego SPIE Optics + Photonics 2023 Reflection Lauren Xiong

To start my reflection, I first want to express my appreciation and gratitude for professor Chhavi Goenka, Barbara Luciano, and the Olin SAG Committee for their assistance and support which made my conference attendance possible. It was a great opportunity for me as an individual and also as a student researcher of HEAL Lab at Olin from a variety of perspectives.

On August 23rd, I was the second presenter at my symposium of optics and biomedical applications. We were the first and only research team that is attempting to develop an non-invasive in vivo endometriosis diagnosis device that uses the technology of photoacoustic imaging. I started my presentation by giving a detailed introduction of the endometriosis disease as well as its currently applied diagnosis method on the market. I then talked about the importance of our approach to develop an non-invasive diagnosis method and went through the general block diagram of our photoacoustic imaging system. Because our ultimate goal is to make the imaging system accessible to all people, we attempted to limit the cost of the light source system by using pulse semiconductor laser instead of employing the expensive solid-state lasers, despite their well-known excellence in output optical power and beam quality. According to the software simulations of our light source, we proved that the maximal optical power output of our system was reaching the MPE standards defined by ANSI. Finally, I shared our future steps which include the evaluation of beam quality of the pulsed laser diode that was used in our system, and plans of signal processing and image reconstruction. If possible, we will also set up the contrast experiment by substituting the wavelength of the pulsed laser diode that we used with the ones ranging from 610 to 710 nm with an optical power output of the same order of magnitude.

From the perspective of the progress of our research, it was beneficial to explore other imaging methods that are introduced under the same or similar symposiums. Under the topic of optics and biomedical applications, there were discussions of the trade-offs being made by applying fluorescent dyes, the importance of making contrast in an imaging system, and other oxygenation contrast using green and red visible lights. There was a group from the University of Notre Dame that attempted to reduce the cost of a light source for their imaging system by several orders of magnitude by using light emitting diodes. These ideas and preliminary results made great references and inspirations to our low-cost system design using near infrared light sources.

As an individual, I found it beneficial to have conversations with the professors or experts in the field of optics and photonics but are applying them in a variety of different branches, which include particle physics, superconductivity, AI and machine learning, biomedical imaging, and a combination of material science and semiconductor doping. Not only was it a great opportunity for me to learn about the most up-to-date research progress on these different topics, but the presentations and/or exhibitions of different branches of optics and photonics were helpful for me to potentially gauge for graduate study topics of interest.