Pulse-coupled neural network (PCNN) and its modified models are suitable for dealing with multi-focus and medical image fusion tasks. Unfortunately, PCNNs are difficult to directly apply to multispectral image fusion, especially when the spectral fidelity is considered. A key problem is that most fusion methods using PCNNs usually focus on the selection mechanism either in the space domain or in the transform domain, rather than a details injection mechanism, which is of utmost importance in multispectral image fusion. Thus, a novel pansharpening PCNN model for multispectral image fusion is proposed. The new model is designed to acquire the spectral fidelity in terms of human visual perception for the fusion tasks. The experimental results, examined by different kinds of datasets, show the suitability of the proposed model for pansharpening.

Photon-counting analysis plays a key role in many areas such as biology, chemistry, and medicine. In this paper, we present an integrated time-correlated single photon counting (TCSPC) lifetime analytical system with a complete signal path – from fluorophore excitation, emission detection, to lifetime extraction. The time-to-digital (TDC) module of the proposed TCSPC system achieves a root mean square (RMS) differential non-linearity (DNL) of 4% of the least significant bit (LSB) and a full width at half maximum (FWHM) temporal resolution from 121 ps to 145 ps within the 500 ns full-scale range (FSR). To evaluate the lifetime extraction and detection limit of the proposed TCSPC system, a wide variety of samples such as Fluorescein in water, Coumarin 6 in Dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO), and Rhodamine 6G in water, each prepared in 14 concentrations from 0.5 nM (nanomolar, 10-9 mol/L) to 25 μM (micromolar, 10-6 mol/L), are tested. With optimized hardware and firmware design, the proposed TCSPC system can accurately extract the fluorescence lifetime of Fluorescein, Coumarin 6 and Rhodamine 6G down to the concentration of 1 nM, 1 nM, and 2.5 nM, respectively, significantly outperforming similar fluorescence lifetime analysis systems.

Photon-counting analysis of nucleic acids plays a key role in many diagnostics applications for its accurate and non-invasive nature. However, conventional photon-counting instrumentations are bulky and expensive due to the use of conventional optics and a lack of optimization of electronics. In this paper, we present a portable, low-cost time-correlated single photon-counting (TCSPC) analysis system for DNA detection. Both optical and electronic subsystems are carefully designed to provide effective emission filtering and size reduction, delivering good DNA detection and fluorescence lifetime extraction performance. DNA detection has been verified by fluorescence lifetime measurements of a V-carbazole conjugated fluorophore lifetime bioassay. The time-to-digital module of the proposed TCSPC system achieves a full width at half maximum (FWHM) timing resolution from 121 to 145 ps and a differential non-linearity (DNL) between −8.5% and +9.7% of the least significant bit (LSB) within the 500 ns full-scale range (FSR). With a detection limit of 6.25 nM and a dynamic range of 6.8 ns, the proposed TCSPC system demonstrates the enabling technology for rapid, point-of-care DNA diagnostics.

Time-resolved fluorescence is a widely adopted technique for DNA detection due to its high sensitivity and selectivity. However, due to stringent requirements on optics and electronics, instrumentation with time-resolved capability is bulky and expensive, prohibiting their use in portable and point-of-care applications. In this work, a fully-integrated DNA biosensor based on liquid-core waveguide (LCW) optics for fluorescence lifetime analysis is presented. The DNA biosensor encompasses all-custom bioassay, optics and electronics into a microsystem, delivering a near sample-to-answer level of integration. Lifetime, rather than intensity, is exploited as the analytical signal from the V-carbazole probe for the first time. Excitation propagation within the LCW is investigated both analytically and in simulations to achieve high excitation rejection and low temporal dispersion, enabling the proposed LCW-based system with much smaller instrumentation size to deliver comparable lifetime measurement accuracy to traditional systems. Detection of DNA down to 15 base pairs at a low detection limit of 1.38 nM demonstrates the high applicability of the proposed biosensor for compact, application-specific, and low-cost diagnostics devices.

Nanoparticles can be utilized as powerful molecular probes for analyzing a large variety of chemical and biological processes. However, their full integration with mainstream, volume-production complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) technologies is still in its infancy. In this paper, we present a DNA analysis micro-system integrating a nanoparticle-labeled bioassay, thin-film optics, microfluidics, and a CMOS chip. This nanoparticle-on-chip quantifies concentrations of E. coli bacteria and neural muscular atrophy disease DNA strands down to the pmol level.