Smart Imaging Laboratory @ UConn

At the Smart Imaging Lab, we develop novel imaging and sensing tools to tackle complex measurement challenges in biology, medicine, and metrology. Our research interests include biomedical instrumentation, biophotonics, computational imaging, ptychography, microscopy, endoscopy, and chip-scale imaging solutions. Motivated students and researchers are encouraged to contact Prof. Guoan Zheng.

Featured Publications

“Ptychography at all wavelengths,” Nature Reviews Methods Primers, 5, 68 (2025).
“Multiscale aperture synthesis imager,” Nature Communications, 16, 10582 (2025).
“Deep-ultraviolet ptychographic pocket-scope (DART): mesoscale lensless molecular imaging with label-free spectroscopic contrast,” eLight, 5, (2025).
“Ptycho-endoscopy on a lensless ultrathin fiber bundle tip,” Light: Science and Applications, 13, 168, (2024).
“Spatial and Fourier domain ptychography for high-throughput bio-imaging,” Nature Protocols, 18, 2051-2083 (2023).
(Cover paper) “Concept, implementations and applications of Fourier ptychography,” Nature Reviews Physics, 3, 207-223 (2021).
“Depth-multiplexed ptychographic microscopy for high-throughput imaging of stacked bio-specimens on a chip,” Biosensors and Bioelectronics, 224,115049 (2023).
(Cover paper, ACS Editors’ choice) “Blood-coated sensor for high-throughput ptychographic cytometry on a Blu-ray disc,” ACS Sensors, 7(4), 1058-1067 (2022).
(Cover paper) “Resolution-Enhanced Parallel Coded Ptychography for High-Throughput Optical Imaging,” ACS Photonics, 8(11), 3261-3271 (2021).
“Ptychographic sensor for large-scale lensless microbial monitoring with high spatiotemporal resolution,” Biosensors and Bioelectronics, 196, 113699 (2022).
(Selected as Spotlight on Optics) “Lensless polarimetric coded ptychography for high-resolution, high-throughput gigapxiel birefringence imaging on a chip,” Photonics Research, 11(12), 2242-2255 (2023).
(Editor’s pick) “Synthetic aperture ptychography (SAP): coded sensor translation for joint spatial-Fourier bandwidth expansion,” Photonics Research, 10(7), 1624-1632 (2022).
(Cover paper) “Optofluidic ptychography on a chip,“ Lab on a Chip, 21, 4549-4556 (2021).
(Cover paper) “Wide-field, high-resolution lensless on-chip microscopy via near-field blind ptychographic modulation“, Lab on a Chip, 20, 1058 – 1065 (2020).
“Wide-field, high-resolution Fourier ptychographic microscopy,” Nature Photonics, 7, 739–745 (2013). (Featured by Nature).
“The ePetri dish, an on-chip cell imaging platform based on subpixel perspective sweeping microscopy (SPSM),” PNAS, 108, 16889-94 (2011). (Highlighted by Nature Methods).
“Surface-wave-enabled darkfield aperture for background suppression during weak signal detection,” PNAS, 107, 9043 (2010).

Lab News

2025

12/23, Our work was highlighted on UConn Today: New image sensor breaks optical limits
11/28, Our work on Multiscale aperture synthesis imager has been published in Nature Communications.
10/29, Our review paper “Ptychography at all wavelengths” has been published in Nature Reviews Methods Primers.
09/02, Our work on Deep-ultraviolet ptychographic pocket-scope (DART): mesoscale lensless molecular imaging with label-free spectroscopic contrast has been published in eLight.
08/20, Ms Qiong Ma has joined in the lab as a new Ph.D. student.
05/20, Dr. Zheng has been promoted to full professor.

2024

08/26, Our work was highlighted on UConn Today: Seeing the unseen.
05/20, Dr. Zheng was appointed the Director of the UConn Center for Biomedical & Bioengineering Innovation (CBBI).
07/03, Our work Ptycho-endoscopy on a lensless ultrathin fiber bundle tip has been published in Light: Science and Applications.
02/07, Our invited paper Spatially-coded Fourier ptychography flexible and detachable coded thin films for quantitative phase imaging with uniform phase transfer characteristics has been published in Advanced Optical Materials
01/30, Dr. Zheng gave an invited talk at SPIE Photonics West.

2023

10/25, Dr. Zheng gave an invited talk at ‘Ptychography at all wavelengths’.
09/16, Our paper Lensless polarimetric coded ptychography for high-resolution, high-throughput gigapxiel birefringence imaging on a chip has been published in Photonics Research, and selected as ‘Spotlight on Optics’.
08/25, Qianhao Zhao from Tsinghua University has joined the research group. Welcome!
08/01, Pengming Song defended his thesis. Congratulations, Dr. Song!
06/16, Dr. Zheng gave an invited talk at Photonics North.
06/12, Our paper Spatial and Fourier domain ptychography for high-throughput bio-imaging has been published in Nature Protocols.
05/03, Our work Depth-multiplexed ptychographic microscopy for high-throughput imaging of stacked bio-specimens on a chip has been published in Biosensors and Bioelectronics
04/08, Our invited paper Freeform Illuminator for computational microscopy has been published in Intelligent Computing.
02/07, Our invited paper Optical ptychography for biomedical imaging: recent progress and future directions [Invited], has been published in Biomedical Optics Express.
01/26, our work Remote referencing strategy for high-resolution coded ptychographic imaging has been published in Optics Letters.