Dynamic holograms for medical imaging and laser guide stars

Optics press luncheon

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CLEO/QELS POSTDEADLINE PAPERS HIGHLIGHTED

Washington, DC, May 14, 2002

Press luncheon speakers will present some of the newest and most interesting topics of the 2002 Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics/Quantum Electronics and Laser Science (CLEO/QELS) meeting in Long Beach, CA.

The luncheon will take place on Tuesday, May 21 at noon in the Regency D ballroom at the Hyatt Hotel, adjacent to the Long Beach Convention Center. Reporters wishing to attend should fill out the reply form at the end of this release or contact Ben Stein (bstein@aip.org, 301-209-3091)

CLEO/QELS PRESS LUNCHEON
Regency D
Hyatt Hotel, adjacent to the Long Beach Convention Center
Long Beach, California
Tuesday, May 21
12:00 - 1:30 PM

HIGHEST PRECISION TEST OF SPECIAL RELATIVITY
Holger Mueller, University of Konstanz, Germany (holger.mueller@uni-konstanz.de)

Holger Mueller of the University of Konstanz in Germany will present the most precise experimental test to date of one of special relativity's central principles--that the speed of light is isotropic, or the same in every direction. In a new version of the 19th-century Michelson-Morley experiment, which first established this principle, Mueller and his colleagues at the Universities of Konstanz and D�sseldorf found that the theory passes with flying colors: The speed of light does not depend on its direction of propagation to within 1.7 parts in 10^15, an accuracy about three times higher than the best previous experiment. Recent tests of special relativity are motivated by modern physics developments such as string theory, which suggests that special relativity may not hold exactly, and that violations might reveal themselves in tests with a certain level of precision. Spaceborne experiments are also planned. This latest experiment is part of a whole new generation of relativity tests.

DYNAMIC HOLOGRAMS, TUMORS AND THE FUTURE OF MEDICAL IMAGING
David Nolte, Purdue University (nolte@physics.purdue.edu)

Researchers at Purdue University have created the world's first real time holographic fly-through of living tissue using infrared light and a special semiconductor holographic film. David Nolte will discuss an in-vitro, visual fly-through of a rat tumor. The key to the process, called optical coherence imaging (OCI), is the semiconductor holographic film developed by the Purdue team. Rather than recording a static image, the image on this film is adaptive - changing in real time to remove the diffusely scattered light that ordinarily makes it impossible to see inside tissue. The process could advance our understanding of living tumors (current microscopy techniques to study tumors are destructive, requiring boiling and slicing). Ultimately researchers believe OCI could lead to new advances in diagnostic imaging.

LASER TAKES THE TWINKLE OUT OF STARLIGHT Deanna Pennington, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, (pennington1@llnl.gov)

Deanna Pennington will describe a sodium guide star - a tool that lets astronomers get a clearer picture of the heavens. Stars twinkle because of disturbances in the atmosphere blanketing our planet. Pennington and a group at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory developed the sodium guide star to accurately account for atmospheric disturbances, and produce much clearer stellar images. The guide star consists of a laser that illuminates sodium atoms in an atmospheric layer 60 miles above the earth, producing a small, bright spot of light high in the sky. By aiming the laser at a portion of the sky near a star of interest and measuring fluctuations in the guide star's light, astronomers can monitor atmospheric distortions wherever they choose to point their telescopes. CLEO/QELS 2002 PRESS LUNCHEON REPLY FORM

Please return this form to Ben Stein at bstein@aip.org or by fax at 301-209-0846

___Please sign me up for the CLEO/QELS press luncheon on May 21, 2002.

___Please send me the general press release for the meeting.

___I cannot attend but please send me additional materials as they become available.

NAME: AFFILIATION:

STREET ADDRESS:

CITY, STATE:

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A SELECTION OF CLEO/QELS POSTDEADLINE PAPERS

Cutting-edge research results often turn up in the CLEO/QELS postdeadline paper sessions. Here are a few of the papers in this year's collection of postdeadline papers.

QELS
-Demonstration of a source for entangled photon pairs in the 1550-nm wavelength range ideal for current fiber optics systems; this makes them potentially well suited for real-world use in quantum communication and cryptography networks (Fiorentino et al., Northwestern University, Paper QPD4)

--Entanglement can survive even when polarization-entangled photons are converted into surface plasmons, collective oscillations of electrons at the boundary between conductors and insulators (Alewischer et al., Leiden Unversity, QPD5, 8:40 PM)

--New report of matter-wave bright solitons (waves that keep their shape over long distances) from a lithium-7 Bose-Einstein condensate (Khaykovich et al., Lab Kastler Brossel, France, QPD7, 9 PM)

-Molecules tethered to single strands of DNA studied with fluorescence resonance energy transfer, leading the way to research on molecular dynamics at nanosecond and longer timescales (A. Berglund et al., Caltech, QPD13, 10 PM)

CLEO
--First demonstration of an efficient and reliable type of laser known as a diode-pumped laser that both sends out a continuous rather than pulsed light beam and operates at room temperature (E. Heumann et al., University of Hamburg, Germany, Paper CPDC7, 9 PM)

--Continuous light beams with very high power, more than 1 kilowatt, from 220-micron-thick fiber-embedded disk lasers (Ken-ichi Ueda and colleagues, CPDC4, 8:30 PM)

-Ultra fast, super-parallel database search, relying on a holographic multiplexer, splits a query image into many copies (M. Shahriar et al., Northwestern University, CPDA12, 9:50 PM) -New method for analysis of microstructured optical fibers by third harmonic microscopy, for nondestructive determination of spatial characteristics of photonic bandgap and air-silica fibers (R. Barille et al., CNRS-UMR, France, CPDA3, 8:20 PM)

CLEO/QELS Postdeadline papers will be presented at a special session on Thursday, May 23, 2002 from 8:00 p.m. - 10:00 p.m.

For more information please contact Ben Stein (bstein@aip.org, 301-209-3091) or James Riordon (jriordon@aip.org, 301-209-3084) of the American Institute of Physics. Also, see the CLEO/QELS website at www.cleoconference.org