Shaped Light at the Interface

光子学-光的科学和应用-在学术和工业环境中都越来越突出。圣安德鲁斯大学的平台奖助金续签是在成形光和应用领域。我们希望开展对生物和医疗保健、传感、对经典和量子世界的基本理解产生影响的研究，甚至使我们能够监测全球气候变化对生活在南极洲等“恶劣”环境中的生物的影响。特别是，我们希望开发新的冒险、冒险的研究主题，走出我们的“舒适区”，推出最好的新活动。我们的工作将包括：i)光子学和材料科学之间的研究。这包括在基础水平上的研究，在那里我们将推动我们对真空中悬浮微物体的经典物理的理解，并研究其行为，以看到“量子”效应，以及探索传感的新方向。想象一个悬浮在真空中的球体，它与周围的环境是隔离的。这样的球体可以仅靠光来平移或旋转。这可能会考验我们的基本理解：例如，真空是否会对球体施加任何摩擦或阻力？球体的材质属性是否会有所不同？我们能用它作为一个探头来测量微小体积的压力吗？当我们减缓或冷却球体的随机运动时会发生什么--它会进入量子力学占主导地位的区域吗？如果我们让细菌悬浮起来而不是一个球体，会发生什么？由于细菌可以生活在恶劣的环境中，这样的工作可以让我们开始探索生物物体的经典-量子边界。Ii)寻找新的用光成像的方法，这种方法可以让我们以最小的曝光量拍摄大型生物医学对象(如组织、小器官)的图像，这意味着更少的损害和更快的图像获取。我们能不能使用“压缩”技术，用预先确定的光模式来照亮一个物体，给我们物体的形状和纹理的信息，但现在只用我们通常使用的10%的光？我们将利用这一能力，通过分析完整网络中神经元的单个来帮助世界首创的“绘制大脑图”。iii)探索新的方法来成像组织的形状和分子组成；这种光子学方法可以帮助病理学家识别疾病的早期发作。如果适当调整，同样的技术可以用于研究南极磷虾的贝壳成分。这些海洋动物受到当地环境温度和营养成分的影响，因此这是气候变化影响的一个令人兴奋的标志。我们的方法可以用来为其他形式的海洋生物成像吗？我们能用定形光将深度穿透提高一个数量级吗？IV)我们能在传感领域开发新概念吗？使用简单的纸基系统提供了希望，并可以与成形光结合使用，用于新形式的多参数传感、远程医疗。

Photonics - the science and application of light- is gaining ever more prominence in both an academic and industrial setting. The Platform Grant renewal at the University of St Andrews is in the field of shaped light and applications. We would like to develop studies that will impact on biological and medical healthcare, sensing, fundamental understanding of the classical and quantum world, and even allow us to monitor the impact of global climate change upon organisms living in "harsh" environments e.g. Antarctica. In particular, we wish to develop new adventurous, risky research themes to go outside our "comfort zone" and pump prime new activities. Our work will include: i) Studies between photonics and materials science. This includes studies at the fundamental level where we will push our understanding of the classical physics of suspended micro-objects in vacuum and study the behaviour to see "quantum" effects as well as explore new directions in sensing. Imagine a sphere suspended in vacuum that is isolated from its environment. Such a sphere can be translated or set spinning solely by light. This can test our fundamental understanding: for example does the vacuum exert any friction or drag on the sphere? Do the material properties of the sphere make a difference? Can we use this as a probe to measure pressure in minuscule volumes? What happens when we slow down or cool the random motion of the sphere - can it enter a regime where quantum mechanics dominates? What happens if instead of a sphere we levitate a bacterium? As bacteria can live in 'harsh' environments such work could allow us to start to probe the classical-quantum boundary for biological objects. ii) looking at new ways of imaging with light that could lead us to take images of large biomedical objects (eg tissue, small organs) with "minimal" exposure to light, meaning less damage and faster image acquisition. Can we use "compressive" techniques where we illuminate an object with predetermined light patterns that give us the information of the shape and texture of the object but now with only say 10% of the light we would use normally? We will use this ability to help the world initiative of "mapping the brain" by analyzing the singling of neurons in an intact network.iii) explore new ways to image both the shape and the molecular composition of tissue; such photonics methods can help pathologists identify the early onset of diseases. The same technology, appropriately adapted, may be used to study the shell composition of Antarctic Krill. These marine animals are affected by local environmental temperature and nutrient composition and this is therefore an exciting marker for the impact of climate change. Can our methods be used for imaging other forms of marine life? Can we use shaped light to improve the depth penetration by up to one order of magnitude?iv) can we develop new concepts in the area of sensing? Using simple paper based systems offers promise and can be used in conjunction with shaped light for new forms of multi-parameter sensing, telemedicine.