Chasteen, Brenden

PhD Student
Chemistry & Biochemistry

Major Area of Focus:

Physical Chemistry

Minor Area:

Theoretical and Experimental Optical Physics

Research Goals:

The central objective of my research is to develop a complete theory of the detection PSF of various sources (such as fluorescent molecules, isotropic scatterers and emitters, and Mie particles) and incorporate SLMs in the theory of the illumination and detection PSFs. This would cover a wide range of microscopy configurations, from widefield and confocal microscopy to super-resolution microscopy, two-photon microscopy, and STED microscopy, thus ensuring its applicability to most modern optical setups. Simultaneously, I aim to integrate these theoretical advancements into PSFLab, so that the predictions of the theory are easily accessible to a broad range of scientists engaged in optical research. The theoretical and computational results will be verified experimentally using the confocal and widefield microscopy setups for single molecule and nanoparticle imaging available in our research group. The overarching goal is to formulate a rigorous theory and unified software framework for accurately modeling lab-based optical systems involving different types of point sources, stratified media (e.g. immersion oil, coverglass, sample medium), low and high numerical aperture lenses and microscope objectives, polarization optics (analyzer, variable waveplate, Babinet-Soleil compensator), intensity-based and phase-based SLMs, and various detector configurations (detection pinhole, finite detector elements).

Poster Presentations

Brenden Chasteen and J.C. Woehl
Realistic computational studies of the illumination point spread function
4/27/23-4/28/23 UWM Chemistry Symposium

Brenden Chasteen and J.C. Woehl
Objective: Continued theoretical derivation and manipulation of the point spread function
4/13/23-4/16/23 NCUR conference

Brenden Chasteen and J.C. Woehl
“Corral trapping of particles in solution: The Dielectrophoretic Force”
MACC 8/2022.

Awards

2023 Ralf Vanselow Award Winner for Chemistry major for outstanding academic classroom and laboratory performance in Physical Chemistry.

  • Chemistry major for outstanding academic classroom and laboratory performance in Physical Chemistry.

2023 ACS Undergraduate Physical Chemistry Award

Invitation to NCUR (National Conference of Undergraduate Research) 2023 at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire

SURF grant: “Theoretical investigation of Point Spread Function of far-field Microscopy.”

Poster Presentation Winner MACC summer 2022

  • “Corral trapping of particles in solution: The Dielectrophoretic Force”.

SURF grant: “Corral Trapping of Nanoparticles and Molecules: Trapping molecules”