The morning of the last day focused on the use of low-NA objectives for 3-D optical trapping using counter-propagating beams and spatial light modulators to modify the phase of light. It was an excellent overview showing state-of-the-art experiments including a multi-sphere-mounted needle that could be used (even by politicians visiting the lab) to inject or probe cells at a sub-micron scale. This was followed by an interesting study of random waves and phase singularities. The half-day session ended with Prof. Dainty recalling his time as a research student with Prof. Welford, work on speckle and the early days of computation for data analysis. Looking into the crystal ball we had a general discussion on possible future routes for optics in the coming decades on themes as biomedical optics, sensors, imaging, and green technologies. With this we came to the end of the road for OptoInformatics 2012, but not for optics. Indeed, in the words of Prof. Glückstad, optics has never been more alive than now as showcased very nicely by Prof. Dainty on a slide of the voluminous Opto-Mechanical catalogue from Thorlabs that started little more than 20 years ago. The winners of the OptoInformatics 2012 awards were announced:
1st prize of the contributed talks went to Dr. Huanqing Guo for his presentation on "Psychophysical visual blur and acuity studies with adaptive optics"
1st prize of the poster awards went to Fiona Kenny for the work "Far-field vectorial polarimeter using programmable three-dimensional focal fields"
Two runner-up poster awards went to Penelope Lawton for the work "Using optical tweezers and a novel high speed camera to investigate conditions inside a dishwasher" and jointly to Rebecca McQuaid and JiaJun Li for the work "Comparison of accelerated corneal cross-linking to standard cross-linking using second-harmonic optical microscopy"
Thank you to all of the speakers, presenters and participants for making OptoInformatics 2012 come true.
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