2008
August:
Congratulations to Min for winning a UCI Dissertation Fellowship award! Min will use this award to complete the final stages of his dissertation project.
July:
Min keeps on shining light on nanowires! This time he managed to unravel the third-order nonlinear properties of the wire through coherent anti-Stokes generation. His results were accepted this month in Nano Letters. More on Min's papers can be found here.
June:
Min's paper on the nonlinear optical properties of gold nanowires was accepted this month for publication in the Journal of Physical Chemistry C. This work, a collaboration with the Penner group, introduces nanowires as potential candidates for surface-enhanced CARS assays.
Differential CARS imaging in three dimensions? It can be done with FE-CARS, says Vishnu, in a paper that was accepted this month for publication in Vibrational Spectroscopy. The work shows that interfaces in the lateral and axial direction can be highlighted with a simple and single phase mask.
May:
Vishnu has moved on by accepting a new job at a major microscope manufacturer. Although the Potma Labs is left in sadness, we wish Vishnu all the best with this exciting new episode of his career. We thank Vishnu for all the great contributions he has made to CARS microscopy while here in the Potma Labs.
April:
We are joining the Beckman Laser Institute in celebrating the renewal of the Laser Microbeam and Medical Program (LAMMP), an National Institute of Health P41 Biotechnology Center. The Potma labs is heading the Multidimensional Microscopy (MDM) project within LAMMP.
March:
The Potma Labs celebrates the funding of an equipment grant proposal by the National Science Foundation. We will use this award to purchase a new laser system that will be interfaced with a focus-engineered CARS microscope.
February:
Desiré's star keeps on rising! This month, our own lab celebrity was interviewed by the Optical Society of America. Read more about Desiré in this article.
January:
The first experimental images taken in a focus-engineered CARS microscope have now been published in the Journal of Raman Spectroscopy. Check here to see Vishnu's latest paper.
2007
November:
The Potma Labs welcomes Alex Nikolaenko into the group. Alex's Departmental home is Engineering, but his research projects will unfold in the CARS Microscopy Lab of the Chemistry Department. Alex will push the focus-engineered CARS program to new heights.
October:
The Potma Labs received a healthy financial injection from UCI's Committee on Research (COR), after our proposal on focus-engineered CARS was awarded. These funds will be used for ongoing experiments on phase-shaped CARS microscopy.
June:
Vishnu's quest for a better CARS microscope continues with his latest calculations on spatial phase shaping. This time, Vishnu shows that a smart phase mask can lead to amplification of interfaces along the optical axis. His work was accepted this month for publication in Chemical Physics. More on the paper can be found here.
March:
Congratulations to Desir'e Whitmore, who has won a Graduate Fellowship from the National Science Foundation! Desir'e intends to use her Fellowship for studying the ultrafast response of single molecules.
Jan:
We welcome Mercedes Chia-Yu Lin to the Potma Labs. Mercedes is joining us from Chemical Engineering and is now part of the Chemistry graduate program. Mercedes will be studying water diffusion in plant systems using nonlinear microscopy.
Congratulations to Ameya Phalke, who has won a Fellowship of the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP)! Ameya will use his grant to study molecular diffusion in biological samples using CARS microscopy.
2006
Nov:
The imaging properties of the CARS microscope can be significantly altered if the incoming beams are dressed with engineered phase jumps. Based on this recipe, Vishnu has performed extensive calculations to show that the bulk background signal in CARS can be suppressed while highlighting "chemical edges". Vishnu's work was accepted this month in JOSA A. The paper can be found here.
July:
The second paper from the Potma group has been accepted in Optics Express! Esben Ravn Andresen coupled pump and Stokes beams into a photonic crystal fiber and generated vast amounts of anti-Stokes radiation. This nifty trick is extremely useful for CARS interferometry, which requires a phase coherent reference beam at the anti-Stokes frequency. Esben's work can be found here.
From the drizzle in Holland to the sunshine in California, Elbert van Putten has ventured into the CARS research experience by choosing the Potma Labs as his internship work place. Elbert will apply his optics skills to integrate photonic crystal fibers with the CARS imaging microscope
May:
Vishnu Vardhan Krishnamachari published the first paper from the Potma group in Optics Express! Vishnu and Esben managed to stabilize an interferometer for picosecond pulse trains. This invention will be put to a good use for CARS interferometric measurements. Their work can be found here.
Feb:
Besides jazz and other groovy sounds, Desir'e Whitmore is fascinated by the quantum properties of molecules. Luckily for Desir'e, the Potma labs has embarked on a mission to interrogate these very subtle phenomena as well. Without hesitation, Desir'e joined the group to carry out several time-resolved Raman experiments on molecular systems.
Jan:
Traveling with just two small suitcases from Germany, Vishnu Vardhan Krishnamachari has set up his camps at UCI to join the Potma Labs as a postdoctoral fellow. Vishnu has previously done some impressive work on novelty filter microscopy and will now be focusing on phase sensitive CARS imaging.
Freshly arrived from a country best known for its politically incorrect cartoons, Esben Ravn Andresen has brought his experience in coherent Raman microscopy to the Potma Labs. Esben will spend the winter months at UCI to work on CARS interferometry.
2005
Dec:
Hyun Min Kim is very interested in biomedical imaging and that is why he eagerly knocked on the door of the Potma Labs. Min got his Masters degree from the University of Wisconsin and has now joined the ranks of UC Irvine as a graduate student.
Sept:
Brave Max Zimmerley is the first student to carry the torch of the Potma Labs. Max completed his college education at Hobart College in Massachusetts. Max gets a particularly cushy seat in the office because he cheers for the Red Sox.
last modified August 2008