Aydogan Ozcan has been awarded the 2015 ICO Prize by the International Commission for Optics for his contributions to biophotonics.

The award lauds Ozcan's work on computational microscopy and digital holography for telemedicine and global health applications. He is a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Ozcan developed a lens-free high-throughput computational on-chip microscopy platform that can analyze more than 100,000 cells within a few seconds over a field of view of >10 to 20 cm². Based on partially coherent digital in-line holography, various landmark results were demonstrated for computational on-chip imaging, including the imaging of single viruses or nanoparticles. This technique consists of forming liquid nanolenses around each nanoparticle seated on a hydrophilic surface. These self-assembled nanolenses are stable for more than an hour at room temperature without significant evaporative loss, and are composed of a biocompatible buffer that prevents nanoparticle aggregation while acting as a spatial phase mask that enhances scattered light from the embedded nanoparticle-nanolens assembly.

The same computational framework was also pushed by Ozcan's lab into a portable and cost-effective nanoparticle imaging and quantification interface, with various applications in environmental monitoring and biomedicine.

Ozcan also pioneered a wide-field, lens-free, on-chip imaging technique that tracks the 3D trajectories of >1,500 individual human sperm within an observation volume of ~8 to 17 mm³ with submicron accuracy. This high-throughput imaging platform demonstrated more than an order of magnitude larger imaging volume compared to other microscopy tools.

The ICO Prize is given annually to an individual who has made a noteworthy contribution to optics and is published before he or she has reached the age of 40.

For more information, visit http://e-ico.org.