Department Seminar - Yoav Schectman

The Department of Chemistry presents: Yoav Schectman

Technion – Israel Institute of Technology

Hosts: Devleena Samanta and Sean Roberts

Title: Wavefront shaping and deep learning in single molecule microscopy and beyond

Location: NHB 1.720

For centuries, microscopes have been carefully designed for the human observer, which practically means to produce the sharpest image possible. The introduction of computers into the imaging loop, between the imaging system and the human observer, calls for rethinking of the concept of imaging. How should we build microscopes when the observer is a computer? In short, images should be informative, not necessarily sharp. 

In our work we focus on the point spread function (PSF) of an imaging system, i.e. the system's response to a point source. To encode additional information in microscopy images, we employ PSF engineering – namely, a physical modification of the standard PSF of the microscope by additional optical elements that perform wavefront shaping.  In this talk I will describe how this method, combined with learning-based post-processing, enables unprecedented capabilities in microscopy; specific applications include 3D super-resolution microscopy, multicolor imaging from grayscale data, volumetric multi-particle tracking/imaging, dynamic surface and flow profiling, and extended-depth-of-field imaging. Recent results on additive-manufacturing of highly precise optics will be discussed as well.