Bio-inspired Optical Imaging Event

Abstract:

Certain animal species in nature have visual systems that are sensitive to light's polarization - a capability that is lacking in the human eyes. What can one learn from this interesting ability of polarization sensing and detection in nature that has been evolved in certain biological visual systems? Inspired by the eyes of such spices, we have been developing various man-made, non-invasive imaging methodologies, sensing schemes and visualization and display schemes that have shown exciting and promising outcomes with useful applications in system design in the optical and microwave domains. These techniques provide better target detection, enhanced visibility in otherwise low-contrast conditions, longer detection range in scattering media, polarization-sensitive adaptation based on changing environments, surface deformation-variation detection, "seeing" objects in shadows, and other novel outcomes and applications. In this talk, I will discuss several optical aspects of the biophysical mechanisms of polarization vision, and present sample results of our bio-inspired imaging methodologies.

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Prof. Nader Engheta received his B.S. degree from the University of Tehran, and his M.S and Ph.D. degrees from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). Selected as one of the Scientific American Magazine 50 Leaders in Science and Technology in 2006 for developing the concept of optical lumped nano-circuits, he is a Guggenheim Fellow, an IEEE Third Millennium Medallist, and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the American Physical Society (APS), the IEEE and SPIE. He has received numerous awards and distinctions for his scholarly research contributions and teaching activities including recently the 2012 IEEE Electromagnetics Award. His current research activities extend from metamaterials and plasmonics, nano-optics and nanophotonics, to graphene metamaterials and optics, one-way flow of photons and electrons, bio-inspired sensing and imaging, miniaturized (nano)antennas, the physics and reverse-engineering of polarization vision in nature, the mathematics of fractional operators, and the physics of fields and wave phenomena. For more information please visit Professor Engheta's website.

 

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