Optica elects Judith Su to 2026 class of fellows
Optica fellow Judith Su, associate professor of biomedical engineering and optical sciences, develops sensing methods to improve drug development and cancer screening.
Optica, the global society of optics and photonics, named University of Arizona researcher Judith Su to its 2026 class of fellows, recognizing her work identifying nearly undetectable matter at the nanoscale.
Su, associate professor of biomedical engineering and optical sciences, has spent years developing technology that could be used to sense environmental toxins, find chemical weapons, monitor food quality or screen for cancer.
“This recognition affirms the importance of developing new sensing technologies that can impact biology, chemistry and medicine,” she said. “This honor inspires me to continue pushing the boundaries of what is possible.”
Quantum dots prove FLOWER power
Su’s Little Sensor Lab has secured millions of dollars in funding to detect previously invisible particles without using traditional methods of fluorescence or radioactive tags. Her FLOWER device (frequency locked optical whispering evanescent resonator) has already detected substances at record-breaking, astonishingly minuscule concentrations.
Recently, the device identified quantum dots – just a few atoms in size – with light. The achievement made waves in the field of sensing, with Optics & Photonics News featuring the study on the cover of their top 30 most exciting optics papers of 2025 issue.
“Optical resonators, frequency combs and quantum light, combined with advances in AI and machine learning, are converging to make real-time, label-free diagnostics and environmental monitoring a reality,” Su told the magazine.
FLOWER channels a laser at a specific wavelength around the rim of a microscopic optical resonator – a tiny ring. When quantum dots absorb some of this light, they generate a small amount of heat that shifts the light’s properties, revealing their presence inside the ring.
“It was a proof of the principle of our technology,” she said. “Now, it can be broadly applied to label-free identification of nanoscale particles and molecules.”
Optica grants fellowships to only 10% of its members. It joins a stream of recognitions for Su, including a National Science Foundation CAREER award, the Outstanding Investigator award from the National Institutes of Health and an Arizona Champion award. The International Society for Optics and Photonics also named her a 2025 fellow. She is a senior member of the National Academy of Inventors and holds 10 patents.
“Judy is opening up new frontiers for research and applications that are expanding the reach of the optical and biomedical sciences,” said Mario Romero-Ortega, BME department head. “We are looking forward to seeing how her work is applied to disease biomarker detection and real-time diagnostics.”