Inventive physicist achieves optics breakthrough

Physics professor D.V.G.L.N. Rao and his protégé post-doc Chandra S. Yelleswarapu finish each other’s sentences as they explain the workings of their invention, the Fourier Phase Contrast Microscope, which images minute organisms more realistically and in greater detail than the microscopes widely used by biologists around the world.

This year, in a rare honor for a UMass Boston faculty member, Rao is being recognized, along with seven others throughout the UMass system, with a $30,000 award from the University of Massachusetts Office of Commercial Ventures and Intellectual Property (CVIP) that will help them develop the microscope commercially. Dr. Rao’s microscope is the only UMass Boston technology to receive the award.

“We regard Dr. Rao is an innovator way ahead of his time," says Susan Daudelin, the director of industry relations in the UMass Boston Venture Development Center, which manages the CVIP program on campus and acts as the incubator and promoter of university research.

Rao has been a Professor of Physics at UMass Boston for forty years, and has been producing original research for the same amount of time. In 1973, the year of the first graduating UMass Boston class, he published a research paper that was recognized by the American Physical Society. Since then, he has published over 100 papers and procured five patents.

Rao and Yelleswarapu’s microscope is based on a dramatic improvement upon standard phase contrast microscopes, which work by exploiting a property of light, its “phase,” which shifts when light travels through transparent or semi-transparent materials. Human eyes can’t detect phase shifts, but through the use of a device called a “phase plate,” the phase shifts are converted into variations in the light’s brightness, allowing scientists to get a more detailed view of the inner workings of biological specimens.

When phase contrast microscopes were first introduced in the 1930’s, they eventually won their inventor a Nobel Prize, but they had their drawbacks: Cells appear to be two-dimensional, and are surrounded by a white “halo.”

Rao and Yelleswarapu’s update uses lasers, liquid crystals, and a lens that performs a “Fourier transform” on the light waves, which create brighter, clearer, three-dimensional images. Additionally, the team’s design is also more rugged, mechanically simpler, and simpler to operate than the models used in laboratories today.

“It uses no moving parts, and is a lot more user-friendly,” Rao says.

Rao and Yelleswarapu plan to use the $30,000 from the grant to create a working prototype that will help them convince a manufacturer to sell their microscope. Rao is delighted to have the extra resources because they will not only help him introduce his invention to the world, but it will allow him to focus on what he does best.

“I’m a teacher and a basic researcher,” Rao says. “Luckily, what I do for my basic research has real-world applications.”

Rao teaches two classes and has served as the Graduate Program Director for the past ten years. He has shepherded scores of students into their own careers, and has given all of them, even undergraduates, opportunities to conduct original research in his laboratory, producing new insights into optics and lasers.

The microscope is just one of those real-world applications. There’s also mammogram technology that can detect “micro-calcifications,” a laser eye-protection project, optical holographic storage, and photonic applications for nano materials.