报告题目：Photoacoustic, Light-Speed, and Quantum Imaging/Physics
报告人：Lihong V. Wang, Ph.D., Bren Professor
报告人单位：Andrew and Peggy Cherng Department of Medical Engineering, Department of Electrical Engineering, California Institute of Technology
主持人：张诗按 教授
报告时间：2026年7月22日（周三）下午2:00
报告摘要：
We develop sonic-speed photoacoustic tomography (PAT) to peer deep into biological tissue. PAT offers functional, metabolic, molecular, and histologic imaging across scales from organelles to entire organisms. We also develop light-speed compressed ultrafast photography (CUP), which records up to 219 trillion frames per second, far exceeding the capabilities of commercially available cameras. CUP can capture real-time images of the fastest phenomena in nature, such as light propagation, and can be slowed down to record slower events, such as neural conduction. In parallel, we explore quantum imaging and quantum physics.
PAT physically couples pulsed optical excitation with ultrasonic detection. Conventional high-resolution optical imaging of scattering tissue is confined to depths within the optical diffusion limit (~1 mm). PAT overcomes this limit, providing centimeter-scale penetration with high ultrasonic resolution and high optical contrast by sensing molecules. Its broad applications include early cancer detection and brain imaging. Since 2010, the annual PAT conference at SPIE Photonics West (about 20,000 attendees) has been the largest conference at that meeting.
With a single exposure, CUP can image transient events on time scales as short as tens of femtoseconds. Like traditional photography, CUP is receive-only and does not require specialized active illumination, unlike many other single-shot ultrafast imagers. CUP can be coupled to front-end optics ranging from microscopes to telescopes, enabling widespread applications in both fundamental and applied sciences, from biology to astrophysics and cosmology.
We study quantum entanglement, quantum imaging, and atomic physics. Entangled photons exhibit nonclassical characteristics and can be used for quantum imaging. Unlike classical optical imaging, quantum imaging has achieved super-resolution beyond the diffraction limit through coincidence detection. Because photons originate from atoms and molecules, we also investigate atomic physics at the interface between classical and quantum descriptions. For example, we found, perhaps surprisingly, that the Bloch equation, conventionally regarded as classical, yields the von Neumann and Schrödinger equations. We also developed a theory that models the multistage Stern–Gerlach experiment suggested by Heisenberg and Einstein more accurately than existing treatments.
报告人简介：
Lihong Wang earned his Ph.D. degree at Rice University, Houston, Texas, under the tutelage of Robert Curl, Richard Smalley, and Frank Tittel. He is Bren Professor of Medical Engineering and Electrical Engineering, Andrew and Peggy Cherng Medical Engineering Leadership Chair, and Executive Officer (Department Chair) of Medical Engineering at California Institute of Technology. His textbook “Biomedical Optics: Principles and Imaging,” one of the first in the field, won the 2010 Joseph W. Goodman Book Writing Award. He also edited the first book on photoacoustic tomography. He has published 630 peer-reviewed articles in journals, including Nature (Cover story), Science, and PRL, and has delivered 650 keynote, plenary, invited, or named talks. His Google Scholar h-index and citations have reached 170 and 125K, respectively, and he is ranked #1 in citations in optics and #4 in nuclear medicine and medical imaging according to Stanford/Elsevier. He was honored with a Pioneer Issue by the Journal of Biomedical Optics. His laboratory was the first to report functional photoacoustic tomography (top 2 cited in photoacoustics), 3D photoacoustic microscopy (top 2 cited in photoacoustics), the universal photoacoustic reconstruction algorithm (widely adopted), photoacoustic endoscopy, photoacoustic reporter gene imaging, the photoacoustic Doppler effect, microwave-induced thermoacoustic tomography, ultrasound-modulated optical tomography, time-reversed ultrasonically encoded optical focusing, light-speed compressed ultrafast photography (219 trillion frames/s, world’s fastest real-time camera), and open-source Monte Carlo simulation of light transport in tissues (widely cited, celebrated by the Journal of Biomedical Optics in 2022). Photoacoustic imaging broke through the long-standing diffusion limit on the penetration of optical imaging, providing the only technology for noninvasive multiscale biochemical, functional, and molecular imaging from organelles to humans at high resolution. Photoacoustic imaging has been commercialized by dozens of companies for both preclinical and clinical imaging (FDA-approved for breast imaging). He chairs the annual conference on Photons plus Ultrasound, the largest conference at the annual 20,000-attendee Photonics West. He was the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Biomedical Optics. He received the NSF CAREER, NIH FIRST, NIH Director’s Pioneer, NIH Director’s Transformative Research, and NIH/NCI Outstanding Investigator awards. He also received the Optica C.E.K. Mees Medal, IEEE Technical Achievement Award, IEEE Biomedical Engineering Award, SPIE Britton Chance Biomedical Optics Award, IPPA Senior Prize, and Optica Michael S. Feld Biophotonics Award for “seminal contributions” to photoacoustic tomography and light-speed imaging. He is a Fellow of the AAAS, AIMBE, Electromagnetics Academy, IAMBE, IEEE, Optica, and SPIE, as well as a Foreign Fellow of COS. An honorary doctorate was conferred on him by Lund University, Sweden. He was inducted into the National Academy of Inventors, the National Academy of Engineering, and the National Academy of Medicine.
