Biography

Christian Depeursinge is the leader of the Microvision and Micro-Diagnostics (MVD) group at the Advanced Photonics Laboratory of the Institute of Microengineering at EPFL (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne), Switzerland (http://apl.epfl.ch/muvision). His research and expertise in biomedical engineering and optics is internationally acknowledged. His current research topics include coherent and incoherent Imaging applied to diagnostics in biology, His research group pioneered in the development of DHM technology. He worked on several projects developed in cooperation with European and international partners. He is author and co-author of over 100 papers published in peer reviewed journals, several book chapters and more than 30 patents. He has given more than 20 invited lectures and plenaries in the last five years. He developed many projects in cooperation with national and international industries. He is co-founder of a start-up company (Lyncée Tec SA: www.Lynceetec.com). He is currently teaching at EPFL and occasionally in foreign universities and institutes.

ALUMNI

PhD Students
Yves Delacrétaz (2009)
Florian Charrière (2007)
Tristan Colomb (2006)
Anca Marian (2005)
Frédéric Montfort (2005)
Pia Massatsch (2003)
Daniel Salzmann (2002)
Philippe Thueler (2001)
Laure Montandon-Varoda (2000)
Etienne Cuche (2000)
Frédéric Bevilacqua (1998)
Laurent Thybaud (1997)
Ramiro Conde (1995)
Olivier Coquoz (1994)
Julio Soruco (1993)
Emmanuel B. de Haller (1993)
Patrick Poscio (1992)
Lionel Desponds (1991)
Etienne Bornand (1986)
Abdel Kader Boutaleb (1984)
Yvan Pochon (1983)

Master Students
Christophe Pache (2008)
Daniel Boss (2008)
Mathieu Grossenbacher (2006)
Nicolas Pavillon (2006)
Yves Delacrétaz (2004)
Florian Charrière (2003)
Jonas Kühn (2003)
Tristan Colomb (2000)
Frédéric Montfort (2000)
Pierre Marquet

RESEARCH INTERESTS

Optics plays an increasing role in nanotechnologies, life sciences, biophysical research, and biomedical engineering. Optical imaging, in particular, presents a renewal of interest, based on the development of new concepts in coherent imaging. Exploitation of light coherence appears as a cornerstone in the development of new imaging technology in microscopy and the analysis of mutually coherent fields generated by the sources of radiation (specially engineered or generated by the observed molecules themselves) will provide access to the intimate organization of biological matter, at the ultimate limit of single molecules. The development, in my research group, of digital holographic microscopy (DHM) appears as a generalization of optical coherence imaging approach, in that it collects the data simultaneously for many directions of the impinging optical beam and appears therefore as a unique tool to restore the pieces of information coherently delivered by the irradiated matter. Further on, the recourse to spectroscopy, more particularly to nonlinear optical properties of matter, biological matter in particular, will provide a unique access to the molecular structure and biochemical composition of living cells and tissues, thus offering probably one of the most attractive tools in the field of optical microscopy.

The main research axis can be outlined as follows:

1) Tomography of cells and tissues
2) Super-resolution (nanometer range)
3) Extension of the coherent imaging technology to fluorescence imaging
4) Multi-modality imaging combining DHM and atomic force microscopy (AFM)
5) Functional imaging by coherent nonlinear microscopy
6) Imaging in turbid media

SELECTED RECENT PUBLICATIONS

For a full list of publications, please go here

B. Rappaz, A. Barbul, Y. Emery, R. Korenstein, C. Depeursinge, P. J. Magistretti, P. Marquet, "Comparative study of human erythrocytes by digital holographic microscopy, confocal microscopy and impedance volume analyser", Cytometry A 73A, 895-903 (2008).

J. Kühn, F. Charrière, T. Colomb, E. Cuche, F. Montfort, Y. Emery, P. Marquet, and C. Depeursinge, "Axial sub-nanometer accuracy in digital holographic microscopy", Measurement Science & Technology 19, 074007 (2008).

B. Rappaz, F. Charrière, C. Depeursinge, P.J. Magistretti, and P. Marquet, "Simultaneous cell morphometry and refractive index measurement with dual-wavelength digital holographic microscopy and dye-enhanced dispersion of perfusion medium", Opt. Lett. 33(7), 744-746 (2008).

F. Charrière, A. Marian, T. Colomb, P. Marquet, and C. Depeursinge, "Amplitude point spread function measurement of high NA microscope objectives by digital holographic microscopy", Opt. Lett. 32(16), 2456-2458 (2007).

F. Montfort, T. Colomb, F. Charrière, J. Kühn, P. Marquet, E. Cuche, S. Herminjard, and C. Depeursinge, "Submicrometer optical tomography by multiple-wavelength digital holographic microscopy", Appl. Opt. 45(32), 8209-8217 (2006).

F. Charrière, N. Pavillon, T. Colomb, C. Depeursinge, T.J. Heger, E.A.D. Mitchell, P. Marquet, and B. Rappaz, "Living specimen tomography by digital holographic microscopy: morphometry of testate amoeba", Opt. Express 14(16), 7005-7013 (2006).

F. Charrière, A. Marian, F. Montfort, J. Kühn, T. Colomb, E. Cuche, P. Marquet, and C. Depeursinge, "Cell refractive index tomography by digital holographic microscopy", Opt. Lett. 31(2), 178-180 (2006).

P. Marquet, B. Rappaz, P.J. Magistretti, E. Cuche, Y. Emery, T. Colomb, C. Depeursinge, "Digital holographic microscopy: a noninvasive contrast imaging technique allowing quantitative visualization of living cells with subwavelength axial accuracy", Opt. Lett. 30(5), 468-470 (2005).

E. Cuche, P. Marquet, and C. Depeursinge, "Simultaneous amplitude-contrast and quantitative phase-contrast microscopy by numerical reconstruction of Fresnel off-axis holograms", Appl. Opt. 38(34), 6994-7001 (1999).

E. Cuche, F. Bevilacqua, and C. Depeursinge, "Digital holography for quantitative phase-contrast imaging", Opt. Lett. 24(5), 291-293 (1999).

RECENT INVITED LECTURES

"Digital Holographic Microscopy (DHM): A versatile tool for micro- and nano- technology as well as biomedical applications", International Topical Meeting on Photonics, 2008, Hyogo, Japan.

"Digital Holographic Microscopy: a new perspective in 3D imaging at the nanoscale", Biophotonics ASIA Optics Within Life Sciences (OWLS-10) conference, 2008, Singapore. (plenary)

"Digital Holographic Microscopy (DHM) applied to metrology and biomedical applications", OFD'08 6th international conference on optics design and fabrication, 2008, Taipei, Taïwan.

"Innovative aspects of Digital Holographic Microscopy", ELMI 8th European Light Microscopy Initiative, 2008, Davos, Switzerland.

"Full numerical processing of optical data in microscopy: a perspective offered by digital holography", Photonics Ireland, 2007, Galway, Ireland.

"Recent progress and perspectives in Digital Holographic Microscopy", OSA: Digital Holography and Three dimensional imaging, 2007, Vancouver, Canada.

"Performance and limitations of Digital Holographic Microscopy: theory and practice", 3rd Asian and Pacific Rim Symposium on Biophotonics, 2007, Cairn, Australia.

"DHM (Digital Holographic Microscopy): one step further towards full numerical optics in microscopy. Application to full tomography.", Workshop on Digital Holographic Reconstruction & Optical Tomography, 2007, Loughborough University, United Kingdom.