From Virtual Staining to Diffractive Optical Networks: The Fusion of AI and Optics

In this presentation, I will provide an overview of our recent advances in applying deep neural networks to push the frontiers of computational microscopy and sensing, with a focus on their biomedical applications, including the virtual staining of label-free tissue for digital pathology. I will also discuss our development of diffractive optical networks—deep-learning-designed surfaces that all-optically implement complex functions as light diffracts through spatially engineered layers. These diffractive processors enable a wide range of capabilities, including all-optical image analysis, feature detection, object classification, computational imaging, and imaging through diffusers. They also make possible task-specific camera designs and novel optical components, such as spatial, spectral, and temporal beam shapers, as well as spatially controlled wavelength-division multiplexers. Deep learning-designed diffractive optical networks have broad implications across different key areas: (1) all-optical statistical inference engines, (2) computational camera and microscope architectures, and (3) inverse-designed, task-specific optical systems. In this talk, I will present examples from each of these areas, highlighting how they create transformative capabilities for applications in autonomous systems, defense and security, telecommunications, and biomedical imaging and sensing.

Aydogan Ozcan

Chancellor’s Professor and HHMI Professor, ECE, UCLA on October 3, 2025 at 10:15 AM in EB2 1231
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Dr. Aydogan Ozcan is the Chancellor’s Professor and the Volgenau Chair for Engineering Innovation at UCLA and is also the Associate Director of the California NanoSystems Institute. Dr. Ozcan is elected a Member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI) and holds >85 issued/granted patents in microscopy, holography, computational imaging, sensing, mobile diagnostics, nonlinear optics and fiber-optics, and is also the author of one book and the co-author of >1200 peer-reviewed publications in leading scientific journals/conferences. Dr. Ozcan received major awards, including the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), International Commission for Optics ICO Prize, Dennis Gabor Award (SPIE), Joseph Fraunhofer Award & Robert M. Burley Prize (Optica), Keith Terasaki Innovation Award, SPIE Biophotonics Technology Innovator Award, Rahmi Koc Science Medal, SPIE Early Career Achievement Award, Army Young Investigator Award, NSF CAREER Award, NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, Navy Young Investigator Award, IEEE Photonics Society Young Investigator Award and Distinguished Lecturer Award, National Geographic Emerging Explorer Award, National Academy of Engineering The Grainger Foundation Frontiers of Engineering Award and MIT’s TR35 Award for his seminal contributions to computational imaging, sensing and diagnostics. Dr. Ozcan is elected Fellow of Optica, AAAS, SPIE, IEEE, AIMBE, RSC, APS and the Guggenheim Foundation, and is a Lifetime Fellow Member of Optica, NAI, AAAS, SPIE and APS. Dr. Ozcan is also listed as a Highly Cited Researcher by Web of Science, Clarivate.

This lecture series features exciting and dynamic visiting and virtual speakers from across the range of ECE disciplines. Take some time every Friday morning to be inspired by these great scientists and engineers before heading into the weekend!