MRI: Acquisition of a Spatial Light Modulator System for Research and Education in Optical Materials, Bioscience, and Human-Computer Interaction

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Non-Technical Description:This Major Research Instrumentation award supports acquisition of a spatial light modulator system for research and training for undergraduate students and faculty in the interdisciplinary fields of optical materials, bioscience, and human-computer interaction. A spatial light modulator is a digital optical projector that allows the user to create a light wave on a pixel-by-pixel basis. Such custom-designed light fields have features that vary over distances as small as one-millionth of a meter, allowing College of New Jersey researchers in materials science to probe light-responsive materials that act as molecular motors, or in bioscience, to selectively illuminate neurons to study their connectivity. The spatial light modulator also enables computer science faculty to construct augmented reality systems for the development of visual interfaces between computers and their users. The technological impact of spatial light modulators spans all modes of information display, including cellphone screens, digital projectors and flat screen displays. Consequently, College of New Jersey students in science, engineering, and education are immersed in a broad range of training opportunities with the spatial light modulator system. These activities occur in close partnership with faculty on a year-round basis, giving students a valuable exposure to an emerging technology that is rapidly advancing the display and perception of visual information.Technical Description:The complete system is comprised of a light source, the spatial light modulator, and the light projection optics. The central component is the liquid crystal-on-silicon spatial light modulator. The light source can be interchanged for specific research tasks. For optical materials research, the source is a blue-emitting diode pumped solid state laser. This enables researchers to illuminate novel photoresponsive materials with rapidly reconfigurable light fields, ultimately providing the design rationale for materials with application-specific photo-mechanical response. For bioscience, the sources include a blue and near-infrared laser. The blue source is used in neuroscience research to precisely target and photoexcite multiple cellular sites, which leads to a deeper understanding of neural microcircuitry. In bacterial biochemistry research, the infrared source is used to optically trap and manipulate bacteria, the first step towards unraveling their signal transduction systems. For human-computer interaction, a red diode laser provides customizable structured light patterns for the optical sensing of objects and the generation of projected holograms for augmented reality systems.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.