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Prof. Guillermo Aguilar-Mendoza and his research team including colleagues from the University of California campuses in Riverside and San Diego have developed an all ceramic, biocompatible, hermetically sealed package for encapsulating electronics. This technology uses disparate transparent polycrystalline ceramics and is sealed by ultrafast lasers. The laser directly joins the disparate surfaces, protecting the electronic device from damage while ensuring a high-quality seal. The inventors strategically considered both the optical properties of the polycrystalline ceramics (linear and non-linear absorption - NLA) and the laser parameters (exposure time, number of laser pulses and pulse duration - femto second versus pico second). Two different concepts have been identified: Transparent ceramics for hermetic encapsulation; and,Diffuse ceramics to demonstrate joining of simple geometries. In the above image - (a) is a schematic illustration of concept 1 above; (b) picture of a sample electronic payload (an integrated chip) placed inside a ceramic tube; (c) picture of successfully welded assembly of concept 1 - the background pattern (pitch 3.5 mm is visible through a transparent ceramic cap; (d) schematic of concept 2 for welding simple ceramic geometries; and, (e) picture of a successfully welded assembly of Alumina and Ytria-stabilized Zirconia (YSZ).   Picture of transparent ceramics fabricated at UCR.

Prof. Guillermo Aguilar and his colleagues from the University of California, Riverside have developed a new approach to laser speckle imaging, called Laser Speckle Optical Flow Imaging (LSOFI) to be used for autonomous blood vessel detection and as a qualitative tool for blood flow visualization. LSOFI works by capturing the speckle displacement caused by different physical behavior and use the data to create a mapped image. It has been shown that LSOFI has many advantages over LSCI methods both in temporal and spatial resolution. Namely, LSOFI can be used to produce higher resolution images compared with the LSCI method using less frames. Combining this technology with Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) computation increases the speed of LSOFI, so GPU enabled LSOFI shows potential to create a fast and fully functional quasi-real time blood flow imaging system.  Fig 1: Comparison of blood flow imaging techniques applied to the raw image. The shown results are for Laser Speckle Optical Flow Imaging (LSOFI) using the Farneback Optical Flow algorithm, traditional Laser Speckle Imaging (LSI), and Temporal Frame Averaging (sLASCA).  

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The functional and esthetic defects in the head and neck that result from surgery, trauma, or congenital malformations have led to the development of surgical techniques to reshape cartilage. Conventional reconstructive techniques (e.g., otoplasty, rhinoplasty, tracheoplasty) involve the grafting or shape modification of cartilage (harvested from the ear, nasal septum, or rib). The disadvantages of these approaches include donor site morbidity from graft harvest, waste of excess graft tissue, shape memory effects, and lack of control over warping, particularly in costal cartilage tissue. Alternative approaches include enzymatic digestion in situ, radiofrequency (RF) reshaping, and laser cartilage reshaping. However, a drawback associated with thermal reshaping such as laser is that the high temperature rise at the treatment site may result in damage to the cartilage and surrounding tissues.

Various thermal techniques are under development that generate heat in the nasal septum. One concern related to these procedures is that heating the septum or its component structures (e.g. cartilage, bone, mucous membrane, perichondrium, blood vessel) will result in full thickness injury.