Absorption-induced transmission in plasma microphotonics.

Ionised gas, i.e., plasma, is a medium where electrons-ions dynamics are electrically and magnetically altered.

Real-time ultrasound sensing with a mode-optimized photonic crystal slab.

Integrated photonic sensors can provide large scale, flexible detection schemes. Photonic crystal slabs (PCSs) offer a miniaturized platform for wideband, sensitive ultrasound detection by exploiting the photoelastic effect in water. However, poor modal overlap with the sensing medium and non-negligible absorption loss of the aqueous medium have previously limited PCS sensor performance.

Refractive-index-based ultrasound sensing with photonic crystal slabs.

We demonstrate ultrasound detection with 500-μm-diameter photonic-crystal slab (PCS) sensors fabricated from CMOS-compatible technology. An ultrasound signal impinging a PCS sensor causes a local modulation of the refractive index (RI) of the medium (water) in which the PCS is immersed, resulting in a periodic spectral shift of the optical resonance of the PCS. The acoustic sensitivity is found to scale with the index sensitivity S and quality factor Q.

Imaging brain activity during seizures in freely behaving rats using a miniature multi-modal imaging system.

We report on a miniature label-free imaging system for monitoring brain blood flow and blood oxygenation changes in awake, freely behaving rats. The device, weighing 15 grams, enables imaging in a ∼ 2 × 2 mm field of view with 4.4 μm lateral resolution and 1 - 8 Hz temporal sampling rate.

Tailoring of spectral response and spatial field distribution with corrugated photonic crystal slab.

We report a new physical mechanism for simultaneous tuning of quality factors, spectral responses, and field distributions in photonic crystal slabs through removal of polarization mode degeneracy using a lattice of elliptical nano-holes. The quality factors in these structures can become higher than those obtained with much smaller circular nano-holes. Furthermore, the modes can be superimposed by either rotating or morphing the elliptical nano-holes into a corrugated grating.

Reducing misfocus-related motion artefacts in laser speckle contrast imaging.

Laser Speckle Contrast Imaging (LSCI) is a flexible, easy-to-implement technique for measuring blood flow speeds in-vivo. In order to obtain reliable quantitative data from LSCI the object must remain in the focal plane of the imaging system for the duration of the measurement session. However, since LSCI suffers from inherent frame-to-frame noise, it often requires a moving average filter to produce quantitative results.

Enhanced detection limit by dark mode perturbation in 2D photonic crystal slab refractive index sensors.

We demonstrate for the first time a 300nm thick, 300μm × 300μm 2D dielectric photonic crystal slab membrane with a quality factor of 10,600 by coupling light to slightly perturbed dark modes through alternating nano-hole sizes. The newly created fundamental guided resonances greatly reduce nano-fabrication accuracy requirements. Moreover, we created a new layer architecture resulting in electric field enhancement at the interface between the slab and sensing regions, and spectral sensitivity of >800 nm/RIU, that is, >0.

Evaluation of laser speckle contrast imaging as an intrinsic method to monitor blood brain barrier integrity.

The integrity of the blood brain barrier (BBB) can contribute to the development of many brain disorders. We evaluate laser speckle contrast imaging (LSCI) as an intrinsic modality for monitoring BBB disruptions through simultaneous fluorescence and LSCI with vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELs). We demonstrated that drug-induced BBB opening was associated with a relative change of the arterial and venous blood velocities.