(Feb, 2014) -Former Student Ceyhun Akcay (PhD '05 - CREOL) and a team he led have been recognized with the 2013 Alcon Outstanding Achievement Award for Product/Technology Innovation. This award is the highest level of global recognition at Alcon. They have received this award for successfully developing and certifying an optical test instrument allowing Alcon to characterize the optics of their new and existing intraocular lenses and to increase the production capacity. They were selected by executive leadership team among over 200 nominations from Alcon teams and individuals spread around the globe.

(Sept. 9, 2010) - "Recent development in Doppler optical coherence tomography (DOCT) is mostly based on phase sensitive detection so-called phase-resolved DOCT. ... the main challenges in conventional FD-OCT are the existence of the mirror image and the limited spectral resolution of the detected spectral interference signal. Researchers Panomsak Meemon, Kye-Sung Lee, and Jannick Rollard from The College of Optics and Photonics at the University of Central Florida and The Institute of Optics at the University of Rochester, addressed these issues in a novel method called dual-detection full-range FD-OCT (DD-FD-OCT). DD-FD-OCT simultaneously detects two spectral interferences that have pi/2 phase relation representing real and imaginary components of the complex spectral interference signal. One main advantage of the DD-FD-OCT over other full-range techniques is that the full-range signal is achieved without manipulation of the phase relation between consecutive axial lines." Read the full story at OCT News.

Rochester, NY. (March 30, 2009) - "With the snip of a scissors, a small flock of gold and blue balloons flew aloft in the atrium of the Goergen Building 1:30pm on March 30th, 2009. The balloons halted their rise precisely at the 4th floor level (thanks to a nearly invisible tether of fishing line), which is the location of the new Robert E. Hopkins Center for Optical Design and Engineering." Read the rest of the story on page 3 of the Optics Newsletter.

Rochester, NY. (April 22, 2009) - "Jannick Rolland, professor of optics and biomedical engineering at the University of Rochester, has been named the first Brian J. Thompson Professor of Optical Engineering in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. She is also the associate director of the recently completed Robert E. Hopkins Center for Optical Design and Engineering."

See the complete press release for more details.

 

 

Orlando, Fla., (October 11, 2007) - An emerging partnership between UCF and NASA will enable astronauts to navigate the Moon and Mars with even greater precision. This announcement is thanks in part to one student&s ambitious research in the highly advanced field of remote sensing technology.

Recently awarded a $30,000 fellowship from NASA, Jon Harben, a Ph.D. optics student shoots for the moon and beyond. “I want to work on something important, and this is huge,” said Harben. The future looks extraordinarily bright for this UCF student who as a child dreamed of working for NASA. With the NASA fellowship, Harben is pursuing his greatest career passion while working under the advisement of Dr. Jannick Rolland, Professor of Optics in the College of Optics and Photonics and Director of the Optical Diagnosis and Applications Laboratory (ODALab) at UCF. “This is very exciting for UCF” and emphasizes the strong relationship between UCF and NASA, said Rolland. “Harben is not only being educated in optical instrumentation, he is also developing skills such as networking, learning how to interact with clients and how to lead a project. This fellowship is renewable for two additional years and allows for the continuity of Harben’s research throughout his Ph.D program at UCF.”

Harben&s current focus is to further the mission of the Particle Ejection and Levitation Tracker (PELT) program. The PELT team comprises not only NASA and UCF but also contract employees at Kennedy Space Center who collaborate on projects from developing simulations to building instruments that will measure dispersed particles on the surface of the moon. NASA has invited UCF to play an important role in the PELT program and its lunar instrument construction project. UCF is particularly excited about this fellowship since it is a unique opportunity and represents the future in engineering technology for space exploration.

“What we are designing is mobile and ideal for a lunar lander,” said Harben. This instrument is designed to collect meteorological data from the moon’s surface. The device will measure how landings affect dust, soil and gravel. The goal is to develop an advanced optical system that can measure a full set of particle velocities and trajectories. Remote sensing technology will provide NASA analysts with meteorological data, which can be used to predict future surface condition patterns on the moon. Harben’s work on remote sensing technology has been a launching pad for the PELT program and his research will continue to be applied to forms of lunar and planetary transport.

“The moon is our first stepping stone toward Mars,” said Harben. “In the future, the instrument will be capable of taking measurements that will improve the Mars global climate modeling and therefore support investigations into the history of water on that planet. It may also measure rocket exhaust plume effects, which will improve the interpretation of lander mission data for science goals but also provide the data needed to develop technologies for human-tended missions to the Moon and Mars.

“This project is highly valuable to NASA. This is because one day NASA hopes to have fuel plants on the moon and Mars, and one of these structures could be damaged by particles blown around during a landing. There are a lot of resources on the Moon and Mars that we can live off of; we just have to learn how to extract them. Lunar soil contains a lot of oxygen and the shuttle’s fuel is 80 percent oxygen,” said Philip Metzger, research physicist and program lead with NASA at Kennedy Space Center.

Enthusiasm for the PELT program and the NASA fellowship awarded to Harben is equally shared by all members of the UCF team. Fellow team member Mohamed Salem, a Ph.D. optics student working on basic research related to understanding light propagation through atmospheric turbulence said that it is important to work with NASA and real world problems. “This is the best experience that one can get out of an institution. This is very good for the university and the student.”

The PELT program is part of UCF’s Industrial Affiliates program. The NASA Graduate Student Researchers Program (GSRP) awards fellowships for graduate study leading to masters or doctoral degrees in the fields of science, mathematics, and engineering related to NASA research and development. This twelve-month award includes a required internship at the NASA Center affiliated with the NASA sponsored research. The goal of NASA&s GSRP is to cultivate research ties to the academic community, to help to meet the continuing needs of the Nation’s aeronautics and space requirements by increasing the number of highly trained scientists and engineers in aeronautics and space-related disciplines, and to broaden the base of students pursuing advanced degrees in science, mathematics, and engineering.