About

Yanxin Luo is a faculty member at the College of Education at the University of Arizona. His professional focus is in higher education, and he is involved in various academic units including Disability & Psychoeducational Studies, Educational Policy Studies & Practice, Educational Psychology, and Teaching, Learning & Sociocultural Studies. He is engaged in research and teaching related to these fields, contributing to the college's mission of advancing education through scholarly work and community engagement. His contact information is provided as part of the faculty and staff directory, indicating his active role within the college community.

Research topics

• Optics
• Materials science
• Computer science
• Physics
• Artificial intelligence

Selected publications

• Quantitative Phase Imaging with a Meta-Based Interferometric System

  ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces · 2025-04-15 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access

  Optical phase imaging has become a pivotal tool in biomedical research, enabling label-free visualization of transparent specimens. Traditional optical phase imaging techniques, such as Zernike phase contrast and differential interference contrast microscopy, fall short of providing quantitative phase information. Digital holographic microscopy (DHM) addresses this limitation by offering precise phase measurements; however, off-axis configurations, particularly Mach-Zehnder and Michelson-based setups, are often hindered by environmental susceptibility and bulky optical components due to their separate reference and object beam paths. In this work, we have developed a meta-based interferometric quantitative phase imaging system using a common-path off-axis DHM configuration. A meta-biprism, featuring two opposite gradient phases created using GaN nanopillars selected for their low loss and durability, serves as a compact and efficient beam splitter. Our system effectively captures the complex wavefronts of samples, enabling the retrieval of quantitative phase information, which we demonstrate using standard resolution phase targets and human lung cell lines. Additionally, our system exhibits enhanced temporal phase stability compared to conventional off-axis DHM configurations, reducing phase fluctuations over extended measurement periods. These results not only underline the potential of metasurfaces in advancing the capabilities of quantitative phase imaging but also promise significant advancements in biomedical imaging and diagnostics.

  PublisherDOI

• Characterization of super-Gaussian beams generated through volume holography

  Optics & Laser Technology · 2025-05-30 · 2 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  Super-Gaussian (SG) illuminators offer a promising solution for addressing non-uniform illumination challenges in laser and related imaging applications. This study explores the generation and characterization of SG beams using volume holography (VH), where PQ: PMMA photosensitive materials are employed for recording and reconstructing SG beam profiles of various shapes. The characterization focuses on ISO-standard parameters, including plateau uniformity, edge steepness, flatness factor, and beam stability along the propagation axis and for different wavelengths, and shows high-performance values. The VH-generated SG beams provide uniform illumination, enhance imaging fidelity, and enable high throughput with minimal image overlap. The comparative analysis underscores the advantages of VH-based SG illuminators over conventional programmable beam-shaping methods, such as spatial light modulators, particularly in terms of tunability, efficiency, and versatility for communication and data storage applications.

  PublisherDOI

• Abrupt Autofocusing Metasurface for High‐Resolution Confocal Fluorescence Microscopy

  Laser & Photonics Review · 2025-10-30

  article1st authorCorresponding

  ABSTRACT Fluorescence‐guided tissue imaging plays a pivotal role in various biomedical applications. However, obtaining high‐resolution fluorescence images of biological tissues while overcoming obstacles remains a significant challenge. In this study, we address this issue by integrating an abrupt autofocusing (AAF) metasurface into a laser scanning confocal microscope to outperform resolution and bypass barriers for imaging tissues. The AAF metasurface, employing cubic phase modulation, serves as a unique light shaper for both illumination and detection. The cylindrically symmetric beam, generated by the metasurface, follows a parabolic trajectory, facilitating obstacle avoidance during excitation (i.e., illumination) as well as imaging (i.e., detection). Our experimental results demonstrate a remarkable 36% improvement in resolution by implementing the AAF metasurface in confocal microscopy. We conducted ex vivo confocal imaging of the fluorescently labeled mouse brain glymphatic system, successfully overcoming obstacles such as a mouse skull with a diameter of 2.5 mm. In addition, we highlight the self‐healing properties and deep imaging capabilities of our approach under ex vivo conditions, leveraging a deconvolution method to enhance image quality. Given superior resolution and improved imaging performance bypassing obstacles, the integration of the AAF metasurface across various imaging modalities holds great potential for a wide range of clinical imaging applications.

  PublisherDOI

• Airy light-sheet illuminator using metasurface

  2025-07-23

  articleSenior author

  Light-sheet fluorescence microscopy is well-known for its optical sectioning capability, low phototoxicity, and large field of view (FOV). Integrating metasurfaces with Airy illumination enhances the FOV, simplifies setup, and enables various nano-optic applications in biology and clinical research.

  PublisherDOI

• Histogram-based Res-UNet model for optical sectioning HiLo endo-microscopy

  Optics Express · 2025-02-05 · 4 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Optical sectioning endo-microscopy has become a crucial tool for deep brain imaging, but conventional methods face challenges such as time-consuming scanning processes and the need for expensive light sources. HiLo imaging addresses these issues by providing faster acquisition and high-quality images. In this study, we introduce a histogram matching-based Res-UNet model for optical sectioning HiLo endo-microscopy. By applying our model, we achieve substantial improvements in image reconstruction quality compared to the conventional ResNet model. Our evaluation demonstrates significant enhancements in the reconstructed images' structural similarity index (SSIM) and peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) metrics. The PSNR values exceeding 30 dB and SSIM values surpassing 0.8 at various depths indicate that our method achieves image quality comparable to the HiLo system. Importantly, while our approach demonstrates high-quality, real-time reconstruction capabilities using ex-vivo samples, we are actively planning to extend our research to in-vivo imaging applications, which will further enhance the practical implications of our work.

  PublisherDOI

• Metalens-based light-sheet fluorescence microscopy

  2025-01-01

  articleSenior author

  Metalens-based dual-sided illumination light-sheet fluorescence microscopy utilizes paired cylindrical metalenses to generate uniform twin light sheets, eliminating shadow artifacts. The mouse lung tissues are measured by the system to offer high-resolution and sectioning imaging results.

  PublisherDOI

• Alzheimer severity classification using Mod-SE(2) CNN geometric deep learning

  2025-07-23

  article

  Early detection of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is crucial for improving patient outcomes. This study classifies AD severity levels using MRI data and a proposed Mod-SE(2) CNN. The model achieves 90.6% accuracy and 91.3% precision, outperforming other models by effectively addressing spatial variability. Results demonstrate improved classification for early-stage AD’s diagnosis.

  PublisherDOI

• Metalens‐Based Dual Light‐Sheet Fluorescence Microscopy

  Small Methods · 2025-07-22 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Light-sheet fluorescence microscopy (LSFM) provides optically sectioned fluorescence images with excellent background rejection for rapid and volumetric imaging. However, traditional LSFM typically relies on single-sided illumination and the stripe artifacts due to partial obstruction or scattering of the illumination beam, resulting in the formation of shadow artifacts. Uneven illumination, particularly in non-transparent samples, results in poor contrast in certain regions of the image and reduces image uniformity. To address this problem in compact fashion, a metalens-based dual-sided illumination LSFM (MDI-LSFM) is presented, which utilizes twin light-sheets for uniform sample illumination. This is achieved by the integration of a pair of cylindrical metalenses in LSFM, forming two identical light-sheets from opposite sides of the sample. Through a rigorous experimental setup, the system-level structure optimization of MDI-LSFM is successfully demonstrated to form an engineering extension by observing ex vivo images of mice lung tissues, achieving a lateral resolution of 1.7 µm with optical sectioning capability of 6.8 µm. The approach eliminates shadow artifacts and simplifies system configuration by replacing bulky optics with compact, efficient metalenses, while achieving a large field of view, high resolution, and fast imaging. These advantages enable wide-ranging biomedical applications for in situ tissue imaging and diagnostics.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Advanced in-vivo optical sectioning endo-microscopic system via meta-varifocal and neural network

  2025-01-01

  articleSenior author

  We propose an advanced in-vivo optical sectioning endo-microscopy via meta-varifocal and neural network. With the telecentric design, it can provide constant magnification during axial scanning for 3D imaging. Furthermore, we introduce the deep learning network for HiLo sectioning technique, which can substantially reduce acquisition time and complexity.

  PublisherDOI

• Metasurface-based Airy light-sheet fluorescence microscopy

  Applied Physics Reviews · 2025-08-25 · 3 citations

  article

  Light-sheet fluorescence microscopy (LSFM) is an essential imaging system for observing biological samples with high contrast, low phototoxicity, and rapid image acquisition. Traditional LSFM utilizes Gaussian illumination with a limited system field of view (FOV) due to the short Rayleigh range. As one kind of the propagation-invariant light field, the Airy beam can inherently extend the FOV and enhance the axial resolution for microscopy. However, implementing an Airy-LSFM requires a complex illumination system. Here, we demonstrate that the Airy light-sheet is conveniently integrated into LSFM using a polarization-independent, Airy metasurface to achieve compact illumination, large system FOV, and high image quality. To verify the performance of the metasurface-based Airy LSFM (meta-Airy LSFM), ex vivo imaging of fluorescently labeled Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) embryos was conducted. The Richardson–Lucy deconvolution technique was applied to further improve the image quality. The experimental results show that the axial and lateral resolution of the meta-Airy LSFM is 2.3 and 0.69 μm, respectively, while the FOV is significantly improved tenfold, up to 200 μm. The tightly packed integration of the Airy light-sheet metasurface in LSFM enables wide-ranging biological applications and has great potential to be easily adapted across various LSFM modalities.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• George Barbastathis

  Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  67 shared

• Sunil Vyas

  National Taiwan University

  54 shared

• Din Ping Tsai

  34 shared

• Jennifer K. Barton

  31 shared

• Raymond K. Kostuk

  29 shared

• Cheng Hung Chu

  National Taiwan University

  23 shared

• J. Andrew Yeh

  Institute of Biological Chemistry, Academia Sinica

  21 shared

• Paul J. Gelsinger

  University of Arizona

  17 shared

Education

• Ph.D., College of Optical Sciences

  University of Arizona College of Optical Sciences

  2008