High-contrast microscopy of semiconductor and metal sites in integrated circuits is demonstrated with laser-scanning confocal reflectance microscopy, one-photon (1P) optical-beam-induced current (OBIC) imaging, and detection of optical feedback by means of a commercially available semiconductor laser that also acts as an excitation source. The confocal microscope has a compact in-line arrangement with no external photodetector. Confocal and 1P OBIC images are obtained simultaneously from the same focused beam scanned across the sample plane. Image pairs are processed to generate exclusive high-contrast distributions of semiconductor, metal, and dielectric sites in a GaAs photodiode array sample.

Current wired telemedicine systems encounter difficulties when implemented in archipelagic developing countries because of the high cost of fixed infrastructure. In this research, we devised Lifelink, a mobile real-time telemonitoring and diagnostic facility to command and control remote medical devices through mobile phones. The whole process is phone-based, effectively freeing offsite medical specialists from stationary monitoring consoles and endowing the system with the potential to increase the number participating consultants. The electrocardiogram (ECG) readings are analyzed using a detrended fluctuation technique and classified into pathological cases using an unassisted K-means clustering algorithm. We analyzed 30 batches of 2-hour ECG signals taken from cardiac patients (20 males, 10 females, mean age 46.7 years) with pre-diagnosed pathologies. The method successfully categorized the 30 subjects without user intervention into the following cases: normal (at 86.7% accuracy), congestive heart failure (86.7%), and atrial fibrillation (80.0%). The synergy of mobile monitoring and fluctuation analysis presents a powerful platform to reach remote, underserved communities with poor or nonexistent wired communication structures. It is likely to be essential in the development of new mobile diagnostic and prognostic measures.

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The heat accumulated in live integrated circuits is becoming more difficult to manage as transistor densities continue to increase at very rapid rates. Two non-invasive thermographic techniques are developed to seek out these thermally active sites which are highly susceptible to failure. One method utilises a simple optical feedback microscope to generate thermal maps based on the measured photo-induced current, while the second protocol probes thermally-induced changes on the spectral reflectance to localise active regions on the sample. These "hotspots" provide the best starting points for an efficient and accurate failure analysis paradigm.