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, computational imaging, ptychography, microscopy, endoscopy, optofluidics devices, and chip-scale imaging solutions. Currently, we have openings for postdoc associates and Ph.D. students. Motivated students are encouraged to contact Prof. Guoan Zheng.
Since 2013, our research has been funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Department of Energy (DOE), Connecticut Innovations, UConn Research Excellence Program, and industry partners. Major techniques under development in the lab include super-resolution ptychographic endoscopy, coded ptychographic microscopy, ptychographic non-line-of-sight imaging, Fourier ptychography, compact and high-throughput whole slide imaging platforms, ptychographic flow cytometry, non-interferometric synthetic aperture imaging, and other novel imaging techniques.
Featured Publications
- “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
2024
- 07/20, Dr. Zheng received a new grant from the Department of Energy.
- 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.
- 05/08, Our cover paper Snapshot macroscopic Fourier ptychography: far-field synthetic aperture imaging via illumination multiplexing and camera array acquisition has been published in Advanced Imaging.
- 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!
- 07/12, Dr. Zheng received an NIH R01 grant to develop a high-resolution, high-throughput imaging platform.
- 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.
