Boston Chapter of the IEEE Photonics Society

Abstract:  We will present a new biomedical imaging technology based on Brillouin light scattering.  Spontaneous Brillouin scattering arises from the interaction between light and sound wave that is inherently present in the sample. By detecting the spectral shifts in the scattered light, which are in the order of 10 GHz, the sample’s hypersonic viscoelastic properties can be measured at microscopic spatial resolution without physical contact. Brillouin spectroscopy has long been known in material physics and environmental sensing. However, its potential applications in biological sciences and clinical medicine have not been fully explored. We will discuss the development of a highly efficient spectrometer and demonstrate the feasibility of several promising applications including ocular tissue analysis and soft matter microrheology.

Biography:  Dr. Yun received his Ph.D. degree in physics from KAIST, Korea, in 1997. He was a Chevening Scholar in 1996 and a visiting graduate student in Optoelectronics Research Centre at University of Southampton, UK. His thesis research in fiber optics has led to a $68M-funded startup company, Novera Optics, Inc., in San Jose, CA. In 1999-2003, he worked for this company, which was later acquired by LG-Nortel, as a founding member and engineering manager. In 2003, moving his career from industry to academia and from optical telecommunications to biomedical optics, he joined the Wellman Center for Photomedicine at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. He started his own lab in 2005. Currently, he also holds an affiliated faculty position in the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology and a visiting professorship at KAIST.