Media

Up to one million times faster than existing technology
HKU advances new optical spectroscopy technology PASTA
for breakthroughs in clinical and pathological diagnosis and smart green engine development

17 Sep 2014

Spectroscopy is widely used in our daily life by analyzing and differentiating chemical signatures of different substances. For example, it can be used in quality monitoring for food safety such as, in recent instances of illegal cooking oil, analyzing the chemical composition of the oil and toxic substances; breath testing of the alcohol concentration on the suspected drunken driver; real-time monitoring of the concentrations on various greenhouse gases or industrial toxic gas emissions in the atmosphere.

In a multi-disciplinary research project led by the Faculty of Engineering, the University of Hong Kong (HKU) has successfully developed a new optical spectroscopy approach which integrates existing fiber-optic and laser technologies, called Parametric Spectro-Temporal Analyzer (PASTA) that can capture optical spectrum of dynamic events up to 1,000,000 times faster than existing optical spectrum analyzer technologies. This achieves unprecedentedly fast, more accurate and more efficient optical spectroscopy of ultrafast dynamic events and will certainly beneficial in wide range of advanced applications. The results have been reported in various prestigious journals including Nature Scientific Reports, Optics Express, and Applied Physics Letters.

The PASTA technology, together with the state-of-art optical endoscopic imaging technology (namely optical coherence tomography, OCT), can analyze massive data in a short period of time and can thus improve the accuracy and stability of in vivo imaging, which enables endoscopic application and real-time monitoring during the minimal invasive surgery. Since current clinical and pathological diagnosis requires taking the biopsy from the human body, while coupling the endoscope together with this novel PASTA technology enables the real-time, non-invasive observation, and helps the detection and diagnosis of early lesions. In regards to industrial application, this technology can potentially be used in real-time ultrafast monitoring on the combustion status of the chemical reactions so as to optimize the combustion engine efficiency and help in developing the next generation smart green engines.

The research group is led by Dr. Kenneth Kin-Yip Wong of the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering with members including Dr. Chi Zhang of the same department, Dr. Nikki Lee of the Department of Surgery, Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine. A press conference will be held tomorrow (September 18, Thursday) to introduce the key features of PASTA and its applications in biomedical diagnostics and industry.

Details of the press conference are as follows:
Date: September 18, 2014 (this Thursday)
Time: 11:00am to 12:00pm
Venue: Room 601J, 6/F, Chow Yei Ching Building, the University of Hong Kong
              (Conference room of Electrical and Electronic Engineering)

For media enquiries, please contact: HKU Communications & Public Affairs Office Ms Trinni Choy (tel: 2859 2606 email: pychoy@hku.hk); Ms Melanie Wan (tel: 2859 2600 email: melwkwan@hku.hk); or HKU Faculty of Engineering Ms Joya Shum (tel: 2859 1924 email: jollyli@hku.hk).