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Last update: 29 May 2008




Dr. Nicholas Isaac Smith

Lecturer

Nano-Biophotonics Group, Graduate School of Frontier Biosciences, Osaka University





 Introduction

I work as a Lecturer in the Department of Applied Physics, funded by the Photonics Center of Osaka University. I previously worked as an Assistant Professor in the Graduate School of Frontier Biosciences (FBS) at Osaka University, in the Nano-Biophotonics group. Our laboratory groups in FBS and Physics work together, sharing equipment and research strategies. We have a hybrid group blending physics and bio technologies, and do research ranging from heart muscle cell physics, to nanofabrication, to nanoscale spectroscopy as well as cover a range of topics in optics.

Most of our research is focused on either the very small, or the very fast. We use laser light to either image, create or modify complex nanoscale structures. By illuminating these structures with a laser for less than a trillionth of a second, we open up new nanoscale (nanophotonics), biological (biophotonics) or hybrid (nanobiophotonics) applications of light. 

Contact Information

The best contact address for me is: Department of Applied Physics, Graduate School of Engineering, Osaka University, 2-1 Yamadaoka, Suita, Osaka 565-0871 Japan

Telephone: +81-6-6879-7847

Fax: +81-6-6879-7330

FBS homepage: http://www.fbs.osaka-u.ac.jp/en/seminar/25a.html

Applied physics: http://lasie.ap.eng.osaka-u.ac.jp/home.html

Email: nsmith@shpam.ap.eng.osaka-u.ac.jp
If you want to contact me, be sure to remove the word "shpam." from the above address. 

 

Current Research Interests

I am studying the interactions of ultrashort pulses of light with biological systems. In particular, near- infrared light pulses of femtosecond duration are commonly used in multiphoton fluorescence and nonlinear microscopy. When the light intensity exceeds the safe threshold for the sample, it is possible to cause controlled modifications in the sample. These light-sample interactions can then be used to study how the cell works, how it signals to other cells, and how it responds to and repairs damage. My doctoral thesis was focused on these topics. 

With my colleagues, we are now applying these ideas to study how such interactions can be used to investigate, probe, or perturb living biological systems. Recently, we have shown that femtosecond pulsed laser light can generate calcium responses in cells, and demonstrated that this effect may be applied to create action potentials in neurons and contraction of heart muscle cells.

 

Previous Research at Sydney University

I did my honours degree and later did graduate research at the University of Sydney. This research was focused on using new techniques to linearize the phase response of the differential interference contrast microscope. We created a new microscope system using a phase-stepping algorithm, CCD, and computer-based image reconstruction to obtain pure phase images of transparent specimens. This allows biologists to see details which were previously hidden by transparency variations in the sample.

 

Publications

    Original Papers
  • N.I. Smith, Y. Kumamoto, S. Iwanaga, J. Ando, K. Fujita, and S. Kawata, "A femtosecond laser pacemaker for heart muscle cells,"  Optics Express, 16, 8604-8616, (2008)
  • K. Hamada, K. Fujita, N. Smith, M. Kobayashi, Y. Inouye, and S. Kawata, "Raman microscopy for dynamic molecular imaging of living cells," Journal of Biomedical Optics (in press).
  • Y. Saito, M. Kobayashi, D. Hiraga, K. Fujita, S. Kawano, N. Smith, Y. Inouye, and S. Kawata, "Z-polarization sensitive detection in micro Raman spectroscopy by radially polarized incident light," Journal of Raman Spectroscopy (in press).
  • S. Iwanaga, N.I. Smith, K. Fujita, S. Kawata, "Slow Ca2+ wave stimulation using low repetition rate femtosecond pulsed irradiation", Optics Express, 14, 717-725, (2006)
  • S. Iwanaga, T. Kaneko, K. Fujita, N.I. Smith, O. Nakamura, T. Takamatsu, and S. Kawata, "Location-dependent Photogeneration of calcium waves in HeLa cells," Cell Biochemistry and Biophysics, 45, 167-176 (2006)
  • N. I. Smith, S. Iwanaga, T. Beppu, K. Fujita, O. Nakamura, and S. Kawata, "Photostimulation of two types of Ca2+ waves in rat pheochromocytoma PC12 cells by ultrashort pulsed near-infrared laser irradiation," Laser Physics Letters, 3, 154-161 (2006)
  • S. Iwanaga, N.I. Smith, K. Fujita, S. Kawata, and O. Nakamura, "Single pulse cell stimulation with a near-infrared picosecond laser", Applied Physics Letters, 87, 243901 (2005).
  • M. R. Arnison, K. G. Larkin, C. J. R. Sheppard, N. I. Smith, and C. J. Cogswell Linear phase imaging using differential interference contrast microscopy, Journal of Microscopy., 214, 7-12 (2004).
  • P. A. Robinson, I. H. Cairns, and N. I. Smith, "Unified Theory of Monochromatic and Broadband Modulational and Decay Instabilities of Langmuir Waves", Physics of Plasmas , 9, 4149-4159, (2002).
  • N. Smith, K. Fujita, T. Kaneko, K. Kato, O. Nakamura, T. Takamatsu, and S. Kawata, "Generation of calcium waves in living cells by pulsed laser-induced photodisruption," Applied Physics Letters, 79, 8, pp. 1208-1210 (2001).
  • N. Smith, K. Fujita, O. Nakamura, and S. Kawata, "Subsurface microprocessing of collagen in 3D by ultrashort laser pulses," Applied Physics Letters, 78, pp. 999-1001 (2001).
  • M. R. Arnison, C. J. Cogswell, N. I. Smith, P. W. Fekete, and K. G. Larkin, "Using the Hilbert transform for 3D visualization of differential interference contrast microscope images", Journal of Microscopy, 199, 79-84, (2000).
  • S. Shoji, N. Smith, and S. Kawata, "Photofabrication of a photonic crystal using interference of a UV laser", Proceedings SPIE, 3740, 541-544, (1999).
  • I. H. Cairns, P. A. Robinson, and N. I. Smith, "Arguments against modulational instabilities of Langmuir waves in Earth's foreshock", Journal of Geophysical Research, 103 (A1), 287-299, (1998).
  • C. J. Cogswell, N. I. Smith, K. G. Larkin, and P. Hariharan, "Quantitative DIC microscopy using a geometric phase shifter", Proceedings SPIE, 2984, 72-81, (1997).
  • C. J. Cogswell, N. I. Smith, K. G. Larkin, and P. Hariharan, "DIC microscopy made quantitative using a geometric phase shifter", Cell Vision (Now Applied Immunohistochemistry and Molecular Morphology), 4, 243-244, (1997)

    Books
  • Contribution to “Biological Imaging and Sensing”, edited by Satoshi Kawata. Springer-Verlag (Berlin)
     
  • Contribution to "Nanophotonics - Integrating Photochemistry, Optics and Nano/Bio Materials Studies", edited by Hiroshi Masuhara and Satoshi Kawata, Elsevier

    Conference
  •  
  • Nicholas Isaac Smith, Shigeki Iwanaga, Taro Beppu, Katsumasa Fujita, Osamu Nakamura, and Satoshi Kawata, " Femtosecond laser-induced calcium release in neural-type cells", SPIE PhotonicsWest BIOS 2005 (invited), (San Jose, USA, January 24 2005)
  • Nicholas Smith, Shigeki Iwanaga, Taro Beppu, Katsumasa Fujita, Satoshi Kawata, and Osamu Nakamura, "Femtosecond laser-induced calcium release in rat neural-type cells", OWLS8, (Melbourne, Australia, December 2004)
  • Nicholas Smith, Katsumasa Fujita, Tomoyuki Kaneko, Shigeki Iwanaga, Osamu Nakamura, Tetsuro Takamatsu, and Satoshi Kawata, "Mechanisms and applications of ultrashort pulsed laser interactions with living cells”, Focus on Microscopy 2003, (Genova, Italy, April 2003)
  • N. Smith, K. Fujita, O. Nakamura, S. Kawata, and T. Takamatsu, "Subsurface Ablation of Biological Materials by Ultra-short Laser Pulses," The 4th Japanese-Finnish Joint Symposium of Optics In Engineering, pp. 87-88 (Osaka, 25-27 October 2001).
  • N. Smith, K. Fujita, T. Kaneko, O. Nakamura, T. Takamatsu, and S. Kawata, "Calcium response in live HeLa cells by multiphoton laser stimulation," OSA Annual Meeing 2001 (Long Beach, 14-18 October, 2001).
  • N. Smith, K. Fujita, O. Nakamura, and S. Kawata, "Subsurface ablation of biological materials by ultra-short laser pulses," CLEO/Pacific Rim 2001, pp.I.230-231 (Chiba, 15-19 July 2001).
  • Nicholas Smith, Katsumasa Fujita, Tomoyuki Kaneko, Shigeki Iwanaga, Osamu Nakamura, and Satoshi Kawata, "Biomedical applications of ultrashort-pulsed laser technology", 1st Awaji Conference (Awaji, April 2002)
  • Nicholas Smith, Katsumasa Fujita, Tomoyuki Kaneko, Shigeki Iwanaga, Osamu Nakamura, and Satoshi Kawata, "Nanoscale 3D surgery in biological materials with femtosecond lasers", The Optical Society of America (OSA), 2001 Annual Meeting, ILS - XVII: 17th Interdisciplinary Laser Science Conference, (California, October 2001)
  • N. I. Smith, K. Fujita, O. Nakamura, S. Kawata and T. Takamatsu, "Subsurface ablation of Biological Materials by Ultra-Short Laser Pulses", The 4th Pacific Rim Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics (CLEO), (Chiba, July 2001)
  • N. I. Smith, K. Fujita, T. Kaneko, K. Kato, O. Nakamura, T. Takamatsu, and S. Kawata, "NIR Multiphoton Laser-Induced Stimulation of Living Biological Cells", The Japan Society of Applied Physics,　The 49th Spring Meeting, 2001, Extended Abstracts; p.1031 (Tokyo, 2001)
  • N. I. Smith, K. Fujita, O. Nakamura, and S. Kawata, "Laser-induced subsurface ablation in biological tissue with sub-micron 3D resolution by infra-red ultra-short pulses", The First Students' International Symposium on Advanced Engineering, p.35 (Osaka, December 2000)
  • N. I. Smith, O. Nakamura and S. Kawata, "NIR Two-photon Laser-induced Ablation in Biological Tissues," The Japan Society of Applied Physics, The 61st Autumn Meeting, p.892, (Sapporo, September, 2000)
  • N. I. Smith, C. J. Cogswell, M. R. Arnison, and P. Hariharan, "Phase-shifting techniques linearise the microscope phase response in a confocal microscope operating in the Differential Interference Contrast (DIC) mode", 10th International Conference on Confocal Microscopy & 11th International Conference on 3d Image Processing in Microscopy (Focus on Microscopy), (Sydney, April 1998)
  • N. I. Smith, C. J. Cogswell, M. R. Arnison, and P. Hariharan, "Phase-shifting techniques linearise the Differential Interference Contrast (DIC) microscope phase response", XI Australian Optical Society Annual conference (Adelaide, December 1997)

 

Award
  • Student chapter award received for “Subsurface ablation of Biological Materials by Ultra-Short Laser Pulses” at The 4th Pacific Rim Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics CLEO/PR2001 
Miscellaneous Research Articles and Press
  • "Near-infrared laser generates calcium waves", page 54, March 2002, Biophotonics International.
  • "Laser Technique Monitors Calcium", page 65, Janurary 2002, Photonics Spectra.
  • Nikkan Kougyou Shinbun newspaper (in Japanese), Jan 17, 2002.
  • Nikkei Business Weekly newspaper (in Japanese), May 23, 2001.