Media Coverage
2024
Mar 2024, Caltech: Using Polarization to Improve Quantum Imaging
Quantum imaging is a growing field that takes advantage of the counterintuitive and "spooky" ability of light particles, or photons, to become linked, or entangled, under specialized circumstances... More>>
Feb 2024, NIH: New Technology Brings Advanced Blood Imaging Closer to the Clinic
The qualities of flowing blood, or hemodynamics, hold important insights into vascular diseases, but technological limitations have largely kept measurements of these properties out of reach in the clinic... More>>
2023
Dec 2023, Photonics Spectra: Ultrafast Imaging Sprouts New Applications in the Life Sciences
From the study of shrimp to DNA sequencing, high-speed cameras and imaging techniques are evolving to meet new applications in life sciences research... More>>
Dec 2023, Nature Biomedical Engineering: Fast capturing of deep blood flow
Photoacoustic tomography can image fast haemodynamics by either exploiting the spatial heterogeneity of blood or by leveraging a single laser pulse and a single element functioning as thousands of virtual detectors... More>>
Dec 2023, Caltech: Advancements Make Laser-Based Imaging Simpler and Three-Dimensional
There are times when scientific progress comes in the form of discovering something completely new. Other times, progress boils down to doing something better, faster, or more easily... More>>
Dec, 2023 Caltech: Seeing Deep Blood Flow With Sound and Laser Light
A great number of health problems, and consequently the medical treatments for them, involve how blood flows through the body... More>>
Nov, 2023 Nature Methods: A Sound Solution for Deep-Brain Imaging
Ultrasound-based modalities are revealing the brain's inner workings with steadily increasing speed, resolution and depth... More>>
May, 2023 Caltech: Quantum Entanglement of Photons Doubles Microscope Resolution
Using a "spooky" phenomenon of quantum physics, Caltech researchers have discovered a way to double the resolution of light microscopes... More>>
Apr, 2023 Discover Magazine: Quantum Imaging Doubles Microscope Resolution
When it comes to quantum technologies, computing has dominated headlines around the world. Computers that exploit the laws of quantum mechanics are significantly faster for several classes of problem than even the most powerful supercomputers... More>>
Mar, 2023 Caltech: Wavefront Shaping: From Telescopes to Biological Tissue
Researchers in Caltech's Andrew and Peggy Cherng Department of Medical Engineering have made a major step forward in medical imaging by taking inspiration from the field of astronomy... More>>
2022
Dec, 2022 Caltech: New Points of View: Caltech Imaging Research Reveals the Unseen
With a wave of new and improved technologies, Caltech researchers continue to change the way we visualize the worlds both in and around us... More>>
Dec, 2022 Caltech: Seeing More with a Needle-Shaped Laser
Photoacoustic microscopy (PAM) is a relatively new imaging technique that uses laser light to induce ultrasonic vibrations in tissue. These ultrasonic vibrations, along with a computer that processes them, can then be used to create an image of the structures of the tissue in much the same way ultrasound imaging works.... More>>
Dec, 2022 US News: Caltech Optics Ranks No. 1 in US News and World Report Ranking
Caltech Optics ranks No. 1 in US News Best Global Universities for Optics... More>>
Oct, 2022 Caltech: High-speed Camera Captures Signals Traveling through Nerve Cells
Reach out right now and touch anything around you. Whether it was a key on your keyboard, the wood of your desk, or the fur of your dog, you felt it the instant your finger contacted it... More>>
Sept, 2022 Caltech: Laser Light Offers New Tool for Treating Bone Cancer
Of the many ways to treat cancer, the oldest, and maybe most tried and true, is surgery. Even with the advent of chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and more experimental treatments like bacteria that seek and destroy cancer cells, cancers, very often, simply need to be cut out of a patient's body... More>>
Feb, 2022 Caltech: New Graduate Track to Combine Study of Medical and Electrical Engineering
In an effort to create more opportunities for students, increase interdisciplinary research, and gain visibility for a first-of-its kind program, Caltech is creating a new graduate education track that combines medical engineering and electrical engineering... More>>
Jan, 2022 Photonics West BIOS Show Daily, BIOS Hot Topics: Imaging Techniques Break New Ground
The field of PA imaging for human clinical use reached a substantial milestone in 2021, with FDA approval for a platform using PA and ultrasound technologies in tandem to differentiate between benign and malignant breast lesions... More>>
2021
June, 2021 The Kavli Foundation: A Camera Fast Enough to Stop Light in Its Tracks
When something happens quickly, we say it takes place in the blink of an eye. Yet, during the 0.1 seconds it takes to blink, a camera developed by Lihong Wang can take 7 trillion pictures... More>>
June, 2021 USC: Breakthrough in Brain Imaging may Offer Future Alternative to Functional MRI
Keck School of Medicine of USC researchers, working with a Caltech team, demonstrate possibilities of innovative imaging technology to visualize brain function... More>>
June, 2021 Caltech: Recording Brain Activity with Laser Light
A Caltech professor, in collaboration with researchers at the University of Southern California, has demonstrated for the first time a new technology for imaging the human brain using laser light and ultrasonic sound waves.... More>>
January, 2021 Caltech: Studying Chaos with One of the World's Fastest Cameras
There are things in life that can be predicted reasonably well. The tides rise and fall. The moon waxes and wanes. A billiard ball bounces around a table according to orderly geometry... More>>
2020
December, 2020 Caltech: Lihong Wang and Changhuei Yang Named to National Academy of Inventors
Two Caltech faculty members, Lihong Wang and Changhuei Yang, have been named fellows of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI). According to the NAI, election as a fellow is the "highest professional distinction accorded to academic inventors who have demonstrated a prolific spirit of innovation in creating or facilitating outstanding inventions that have made a tangible impact on quality of life, economic development and the welfare of society... More>>
December, 2020 Caltech: Two Caltech Faculty Receive NIH BRAIN Grants
Two Caltech researchers have received funding for neuroscience projects from the National Institutes of Health's Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative... More>>
November, 2020 Physics World: Ultrafast camera breaks 3D speed record
A new camera that takes videos at record-breaking speeds of up to 100 billion frames per second in 3D has been demonstrated by researchers at the California Institute of Technology in the US. The feat was made possible by a technique known as single-shot stereo-polarimetric compressed ultrafast photography (SP-CUP), and it builds on the group's earlier work – including a camera that takes images at 70 trillion frames per second, which is fast enough to see light travel... More>>
November, 2020 Wiley Analytical Science: Professor Lihong Wang: Extreme Imaging
In January this year, Lihong Wang combined his world's fastest camera with phase contrast microscopy to image ultrafast phenomena in transparent objects at a blisteringly fast one trillion frames per seconds... More>>
October, 2020 Caltech: Ultrafast Camera Films 3-D Movies at 100 Billion Frames Per Second
In his quest to bring ever-faster cameras to the world, Caltech's Lihong Wang has developed technology that can reach blistering speeds of 70 trillion frames per second, fast enough to see light travel. Just like the camera in your cell phone, though, it can only produce flat images... More>>
May, 2020 Yahoo/Popular Mechanics: The World's Fastest Camera is Frankly Mind-Boggling
For as much as cameras allow us to experience phenomena that would otherwise go unnoticed, their imaging speeds still fundamentally limit our capability to see, well, everything. Now, scientists at the California Institute of Technology hope to change that... More>>
May, 2020 Caltech: New Ultrafast Camera Takes 70 Trillion Pictures Per Second
Just about everyone has had the experience of blinking while having their picture taken. The camera clicks, your eyes shut, and by the time they open again, the photo is ruined. A new ultrafast camera developed at Caltech, were it aimed at your lovely face, could also capture you looking like a dunce with your eyes shut, except instead of taking just one picture in the time it takes you to blink, it could take trillions of pictures... More>>
May, 2020 New Atlas: World's Fastest Camera Captures 70 Trillion Frames per Second
The best phone cameras can record slow motion with under 1,000 frames per second. Commercial rigs generally shoot with several thousand. But that all absolutely pales in comparison to the new record holder for the world's fastest camera, boasting a mind-boggling rate of 70 trillion frames per second. That's fast enough to capture light waves in movement... More>>
March, 2020 Nature Methods: Photoacoustics in a Snap
Photoacoustic topography through an ergodic relay increases imaging throughput and opens a path toward wearable devices... More>>
February, 2020 Caltech: Advancement Simplifies Laser-Based Medical Imaging
Photoacoustic imaging, a technique for examining living materials through the use of laser light and ultrasonic sound waves, has many potential applications in medicine because of its ability to show everything from organs to blood vessels to tumors... More>>
January, 2020 Wiley Analytical Science: Ultrafast camera takes 1 trillion frames per second
US-based researchers have combined extreme speed photography with phase contrast microscopy to image ultrafast phenomena in transparent objects, from cells to shockwaves, at picosecond resolution... More>>
New camera technology that takes up to 1 trillion frames per second is so advanced it can take images of transparent phenomena, U.S. researchers say. The camera builds on previous research, in which the team used the technology to capture light traveling in slow motion... More>>
A little over a year ago, Caltech's Lihong Wang developed the world's fastest camera, a device capable of taking 10 trillion pictures per second. It is so fast that it can even capture light traveling in slow motion... More>>
2019
December, 2019 Optics and Photonics News: Ultraviolet-Localized Mid-IR Photoacoustic Microscopy
Label-free mid-infrared (MIR) microscopy provides rich chemical and structural information on biological tissues. While traditional histopathology requires time-consuming tissue section processing and staining, MIR microscopy can obtain histopathologic information without staining. However, strong MIR absorption of water in fresh biological samples results in high background and low contrast, which limits conventional MIR techniques to imaging only dried and thin-sliced tissue specimens. Moreover, at long MIR wavelengths, optical diffraction severely limits lateral resolution, preventing the technique from resolving subcellular information. This year, we developed ultraviolet-localized MIR photoacoustic microscopy (ULM–PAM), which can achieve high-resolution and water background–free MIR imaging of fresh biological samples... More>>
If you were to use your smartphone to record a video you are talking about maybe a 30 Hertz frame rate, meaning you capture 30 frames per second. That is good enough for daily phenome-non but if you want to capture something much faster, we have to do something very different. Of course the fastest phenomenon in the world is light propagation. Light pulses propagate at the speed of light and as we know that's the terminal speed, nothing can propagate faster than the speed of light. The fastest 1D camera is some-thing called "streak camera" that gives you 1 T images but at a very high, not frame but, line rate, so we want to add one more dimension to it... More>>
July, 2019 Caltech: Microrobots Activated by Laser Pulses Show Promise For Treating Tumors
Targeting medical treatment to an ailing body part is a practice as old as medicine itself. A Band-Aid is placed on a skinned knee. Drops go into itchy eyes. A broken arm goes into a cast. But often what ails us is inside the body and is not so easy to reach. In such cases, a treatment like surgery or chemotherapy might be called for. A pair of researchers in Caltech's Division of Engineering and Applied Science are working on an entirely new form of treatment—microrobots that can deliver drugs to specific spots inside the body while being monitored and controlled from outside the body... More>>
June, 2019 The Pathologist: Photoacoustic Microscopy Makes All the Right Noises
It may look like a giant game of space invaders, but each colored dot in this image is an individual cancer cell within a droplet of blood. In this scanned image of single-cell metabolic photoacoustic microscopy (SCM-PAM), different colors represent the amount of oxygen dissolved in each well. To measure oxygen consumption rate, researchers place cells into individual wells filled with blood; those with higher metabolisms consume more oxygen, lowering the level remaining in the blood... More>>
May, 2019 Caltech: Lasers Aim to Replace Scalpels in Cutting-Edge Biopsy Technique
Researchers in Lihong Wang's lab have developed a new imaging technique that uses pulses from two kinds of lasers to take pictures of microscopic biological structures... More>>
May, 2019 Nature Biomedical Engineering: Imaging Intratumoral Metabolic Heterogeneity
The oxygen consumption rates of single tumour cells can be measured via photoacoustic microscopy, by leveraging haemoglobin as both an oxygen supplier and an oxygen sensor... More>>
Photoacoustic computed tomography (PACT) is a non-invasive hybrid imaging technique that excites biological tissues with light and detects the subsequently generated ultrasound to form images. PACT combines the advantages of both optical imaging--high optical contrast, and ultrasonic imaging--high resolution and deep penetration in biological tissues. PACT has been widely used for vascular network mapping, functional brain imaging, and tumor detection in deep tissues... More>>
April, 2019 Caltech: Laser Technology Helps Researchers Scrutinize Cancer Cells
Devising the best treatment for a patient with cancer requires doctors to know something about the traits of the cancer from which the patient is suffering. But one of the greatest difficulties in treating cancer is that cancer cells are not all the same. Even within the same tumor, cancer cells can differ in their genetics, behavior, and susceptibility to chemotherapy drugs... More>>
Tumours consist of heterogeneous populations of cancer cells that have distinct genetic and phenotypic profiles. Cellular heterogeneity within a tumour, namely intratumoural heterogeneity, has become a great barrier to effective cancer therapy. Assessing the extent of intratumoural metabolic heterogeneity would greatly contribute to our understanding of tumour growth, invasion, and drug resistance... More>>
March, 2019 Planet Slow Mo: Filming the Speed of Light at 10 Trillion FPS
Feb, 2019 SPIE: Photons plus ultrasound: 25 years at Photonics West
In 2003, Lihong Wang, then at Texas A&M University, US, delivered images of brains in living rats that well and truly moved the field of photoacoustic imaging into the fast lane. Revealing intricate networks of blood vessels in the rat cerebral cortex - acquired with the skin and skull intact - the tomograms represented a massive leap forward for functional imaging using photoacoustics, also known as optoacoustics, and stunned researchers worldwide... More>>
2018
December, 2018 Optics and Photonics News: Glimpsing Laser Focusing at 10 Trillion Frames per Second
Rooted in the physics of space-time duality, temporal focusing—a time-domain counterpart of spatial focusing—has found diverse applications in nonlinear microscopy and materials processing. Temporal-focusing events are often non-repeatable, which precludes scrutinizing the propagation of ultrashort laser pulses in living biological tissue and investigating the elusive physics of strong-field interactions with matter... More>>
November, 2018 HealthCareBusiness: From the Frontlines to the Frontier: CT Trends and Innovations
New scanners on the market are providing higher image quality with faster acquisition time, driving demand among cardiology and oncology departments. The systems are being packaged with new and improved applications to simplify the exam process and radiation dose optimization technology to ensure patients are being imaged in the safest and most efficient ways possible... More>>
Single-shot 10-trillion-frame-per-second compressed ultrafast photography (CUP) is now possible with a new camera, developed by researchers from Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique (INRS) and California Institute of Technology (Caltech). The camera system, called T-CUP, passively captures dynamic events with 100-femtosecond (fs) frame intervals in a single camera exposure. According to the researchers, T-CUP has set a new record for real-time imaging speed, even capturing light in extremely slow motion... More>>
Additional media coverage of our recent 10-trillion-frame-per-second CUP Camera can be found here>>
October, 2018 Imaging and Microscopy: Camera Freezes Time at 10 Trillion Frames per Second
In recent years, the junction between innovations in non-linear optics and imaging has opened the door for new and highly efficient methods for microscopic analysis of dynamic phenomena in biology and physics. But to harness the potential of these methods, there needs to be a way to record images in real time at a very short temporal resolution—in a single exposure... More>>
October, 2018 Phys.org: World's fastest camera freezes time at 10 trillion frames per second
What happens when a new technology is so precise that it operates on a scale beyond our characterization capabilities? Although some measurements are possible, nothing beats a clear image, says INRS professor and ultrafast imaging specialist Jinyang Liang. He and his colleagues, led by Caltech's Lihong Wang, have developed what they call T-CUP: the world's fastest camera, capable of capturing 10 trillion frames per second. This new camera literally makes it possible to freeze time to see phenomena—and even light—in extremely slow motion... More>>
October, 2018 SPIE: Man Makes PACT
An innovative breast-imaging technique offers noninvasive options for multiple biomedical applications... More>>
July, 2018 The Imaging Wire: Caltech's Mammo Alternative
Our goal is to build a dream machine for breast screening, diagnosis, monitoring, and prognosis without any harm to the patient. We want it to be fast, painless, safe, and inexpensive... More>>
July, 2018 NIH: Technique may improve detection of breast tumors
Researchers have been developing a new method for detecting breast cancer called photoacoustic computed tomography (PACT). The technique uses harmless pulses of laser light to penetrate the breast tissue. This causes a type of sound wave called photoacoustic waves to spread through the tissue. These waves can be measured by sensors surrounding the breast... More>>
July, 2018 Biomedical Picture of the Day: Move Over Mammogram
The image shows a scan of a human breast performed by photoacoustic computed tomography (or PACT) – a new imaging technology that may one day replace the typical X-ray mammograms that women over the age of 40 routinely undergo to check for the presence of breast cancer... More>>
June, 2018 BioOptics World: Photoacoustic tomography can image an entire breast in 15 seconds
Knowing that the conventional method for breast cancer screening—mammography—is less than ideal for multiple reasons (including exposure to x-ray radiation and discomfort for patients), researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech; Pasadena, CA) have developed a laser-sonic scanner that can find tumors in as little as 15 seconds by shining pulses of light into the breast... More>>
June, 2018 Science Daily: Laser-sonic scanner aims to replace mammograms for finding breast cancer
Early detection has been shown to increase breast cancer survival rates, but many women avoid having their mammograms taken as often as they should because of the discomfort involved. A 2013 study found that as many as half of women who were avoiding their mammograms cited pain as the reason why... More>>
Researchers from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena have developed a single-breath-hold photoacoustic CT (SBH-PACT) system that can image a patient's breast in 15 seconds and requires no ionizing radiation or contrast agents, sharing their findings in a new study published by Nature Communications... More>>
June, 2018 NIBIB: Light-based, 15-second scan aims to replace painful mammograms
Up to 50% of women skip potentially life-saving mammograms often because the procedure can cause extreme discomfort and pain. Now researchers have developed a painless, light-based, non-radioactive, 15-second procedure that could revolutionize breast cancer screening and save lives... More>>
June, 2018 Caltech: Laser-sonic Scanner Aims to Replace Mammograms for Finding Breast Cancer
Caltech researchers say they have developed something better: a laser-sonic scanner that can find tumors in as little as 15 seconds by shining pulses of light into the breast... More>>
February, 2018 OSA: The Optical Society Presents the 2018 Michael S. Feld Biophotonics Award
The Optical Society (OSA) is pleased to name Lihong Wang, California Institute of Technology, USA, the 2018 Michael S. Feld Biophotonics Award recipient. Wang is recognized for inventing the world's fastest two-dimensional receive-only camera and enabling real-time imaging of the fastest phenomena such as light propagation and fluorescence decay... More>>
February, 2018 Nature Biomedical Engineering: First Anniversary Top 10 Articles
In the first anniversary of the launch of Nature Biomedical Engineering, the editors have selected 10 pieces of content that exemplify the interdisciplinarity of the subject area and the need for closer collaboration between bench researchers, clinicians and medical engineers to solve outstanding health challenges... More>>
February, 2018 Caltech: Lihong Wang Elected to National Academy of Engineering
Lihong Wang, Bren Professor of Medical Engineering and Electrical Engineering, has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). Election to the NAE is considered among the highest professional distinctions in the engineering field... More>>
February, 2018 Rice Engineering: Rice grad Lihong Wang elected to National Academy of Engineering (Link unavailable)
Lihong V. Wang, who earned his Ph.D. in electrical engineering while working with two Nobel Laureates at Rice University, has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NEA)...
2017
October, 2017 Caltech: Laser-Imaging Technology Brought into Focus
Caltech engineers have improved a technique for taking three-dimensional (3-D) microscopic images of tissue, allowing them to see inside living creatures with greater precision than before... More>>
September, 2017 BioOptics World: Photoacoustic imaging pioneer Lihong Wang talks to BioOptics World
In this video, Barbara Gefvert, editor-in-chief of BioOptics World, speaks with Lihong Wang, Ph.D., Bren Professor of Medical Engineering and Electrical Engineering at Caltech, about his exciting work in photoacoustic imaging for peering noninvasively into biological tissues... More>>
July, 2017 Bioengineering Today: New Imaging Technique Yields Detailed, Whole-Body Videos of a Rat's Insides (Link unavailable)
Small animals such as rodents are indispensable models for preclinical and basic science research. Seeing inside their entire bodies with high spatial and time resolution could provide insights into biological processes, advancing studies of human disease and drug development...
June, 2017 Medical Physics Web: SIP-PACT tracks whole-body dynamics in real time (Link unavailable)
Photoacoustic computed tomography (PACT) is an optical imaging technology used for whole-body imaging of small laboratory animals. A new single-impulse panoramic PACT (SIP-PACT) system is enabling researchers to perform high-resolution in vivo imaging of whole-body dynamics of small animals in real time. The system combines high spatiotemporal resolution, deep penetration, anatomical, dynamical and functional contrasts, and full-view fidelity...
May, 2017 New Atlas: New cancer imaging technique to help removal of tumors in one go
For many patients diagnosed with cancer, the primary treatment plan is surgery to remove the tumor, but in the quest to retain as much healthy tissue as possible, it's impossible for surgeons to know if they've removed all traces of the cancerous tissue while in the operating room. A new imaging technique would give doctors this ability, thus avoiding having the patient return to surgery weeks later for a second procedure... More>>
May, 2017 Biophotonics.World: Cutting down on cancer surgeries (Link unavailable)
Engineers at the Optical Imaging Laboratory led by Caltech's Lihong Wang have developed an imaging technology that could help surgeons removing breast cancer lumps confirm that they have cut out the entire tumor--reducing the need for additional surgeries...
May, 2017 Caltech: Laser-Induced Sound Waves Provide Live Panoramic Views of Tissue Functions
Medical engineers at the Optical Imaging Laboratory led by Caltech's Lihong Wang are now able to take a live look at the inner workings of a small animal with enough resolution to see active organs, flowing blood, circulating melanoma cells, and firing neural networks... More>>
March, 2017 Caltech: Seeing Deeper: An Interview with Lihong Wang
Using a combination of light and sound, Lihong Wang is noninvasively peering deeper inside biological tissues than previously possible. Three-dimensional photoacoustic microscopy and functional photoacoustic computed tomography, the technologies first reported by Wang—Caltech's Bren Professor of Medical Engineering and Electrical Engineering—generate detailed color images of tumors and other structures inside the body... More>>
March, 2017 SPIE: Worlds fastest camera for ultrafast phenomena provides temporal information
In this video interview, Lihong Wang of Calltech discusses a single-shot ultrafast video recording of a light-induced photonic Mach cone propagating in an engineered scattering plate assembly. This dynamic light-scattering event was captured in a single camera exposure by lossless-encoding compressed ultrafast photography at 100 billion frames per second...More>>
March, 2017 Nature Photonics: Light scattering on tape
Ultrafast two-dimensional imaging of dynamic phenomena in real time should ideally achieve a picosecond-level exposure time per frame while avoiding temporal and spatial scanning. Now, Jinyang Liang and collaborators have successfully recorded light-scattering dynamics in the form of a photonic Mach cone with a single camera exposure at a rate of 100 billion frames per second...More>>
Feburary, 2017 Science & Vie: They filmed the movement of light in a vacuum!
This is the fastest race in the Universe, at nearly 300,000 km/s ... and yet it did not stop the physicists of Lihong Wang's team from the University Of Washington, in St Louis (USA), to film for the first time the propagation of light in a vacuum...More>>(French)