Dennis Gabor Award

SPIE Fellow Kazuyoshi Itoh, a prominent researcher and educator in holography, optical signal processing, and nonlinear optical microscopy, is the recipient of the 2015 Dennis Gabor award.

Itoh, a professor at Osaka University (Japan), is recognized for his 30 years of contributions to the development of incoherent holography and nonlinear optical microscopy and for his pioneering work on coherence-based multispectral and 3D imaging, nonlinear optical imaging, and manipulations of biological and inorganic industrial materials.

SPIE presents the Dennis Gabor Award every year to recognize outstanding accomplishments in diffractive wavefront technologies, especially those that further the development of holography and metrology applications. Itoh received his award at SPIE Optical Metrology in Munich in June.

In the early 1980s, Itoh pioneered research on coherence-based multispectral imaging and 3D imaging. He developed a wavefront-folding interferometer that can measure the complex coherence function by averaging out the phase noise caused by the air turbulence.

His technique was the first successful application of incoherent holography for imaging through air turbulence.

Itoh discovered the importance of performing phase unwrapping before averaging and proposed an algorithm for efficient phase unwrapping, known as the Itoh Algorithm. This algorithm forms one of the bases of today’s phase unwrapping techniques and is cited widely in interferometry, side-looking radar, and magnetic resonance imaging.

His other developments include a novel four-wave-mixing microscopy technique, called stimulated parametric emission microscopy, and a nonlinear optical microscopy technique called stimulated Raman scattering microscopy (SRS). This innovative technique is capable of highly sensitive, high-contrast, 3D, live imaging of cells and tissues without staining or labeling.

Itoh, who has presented numerous invited papers at SPIE conferences, served on the executive committee of the former SPIE Japan Chapter and was the president of the Optical Society of Japan from 2006 to 2008. He is currently a member of the Science Council of Japan.

SPIE presents several annual awards that recognize individual and team technical accomplishments in optics and photonics and service to the Society.

Nominations for 2016 may be submitted to SPIE through 1 July 2015 for the Britton Chance Biomedical Optics Award and the Biophotonics Technology Innovator Award and by 1 October 2015 for all other SPIE awards.

Nominations remain active for three years from the submission date, except for the SPIE Early Career Achievement Award and the Joseph W. Goodman Book Writing Award.

Nominations must be accompanied by:

• Nomination form
• Citation stating the accomplishments of nominee
• Description of the significant aspects of nominee’s career
• Candidate’s curriculum vitae listing educational background, positions held, publications, awards, honors, activities, and offices held within SPIE
• At least two letters of reference, not from the nominator

Learn more about SPIE awards.

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