The published paper reports on the results of more than 5 years of collaboration and introduces a new instrument that the scientific community can use to accurately integrate ex-vivo dissection and in-vivo tractography data. These two complementary techniques had never been integrated so far into the study of human white matter connections, and this confirms a new research trend, where multidisciplinary competencies converge, in this case clinical neuroscience and artificial intelligence. The study opens new frontiers for Neurosurgery in the treatment of brain tumors and the approach to degenerative neurological disorders, and in Neuro-rehabilitation to harness the potential of brain plasticity. The new instrument, called BraDiPho (Brain Dissection Photogrammetry), is the result of the joint effort of the University of Trento, the Provincial Healthcare Services of Trento (Apss) and Fondazione Bruno Kessler, in collaboration with the University of Bordeaux (France) and the University of Sherbrooke (Canada).

The research group led by Prof. Young-Jin Kim has demonstrated a nanometer-resolution displacement sensing methodology by actively modulating deep-UV beams generated via third-harmonic conversion of an 800 nm femtosecond laser. Instead of manipulating the deep-UV beam directly, the fundamental near-IR beam was pre-modulated and its phase profile was coherently transferred to the generated deep-UV harmonic, enabling stable and real-time control in an absorption-dominated wavelength region where conventional modulators do not operate. The team further realized high-visibility periodic beam patterns and tuned their pitch and orientation to induce moiré amplification against semiconductor periodic patterns, detecting displacement signals that were invisible to direct optical imaging. The demonstration provides a first practical route to active beam modulation-based precision metrology in the deep-UV band and is expected to extend toward EUV and X-ray regimes for future 3 nm node linewidth metrology, attosecond science, and real-time bio-imaging applications. This study has been published in PhotoniX (Q1, IF 19.1) on November 6 and supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea.

Researchers from the South China University of Technology, Jihua Laboratory, and Jilin University have developed a new way to make deep-blue OLED (organic light-emitting diode) devices more efficient without compromising on color quality.