Abstract: Disclosed herein is an apparatus and method for dynamic multi plane imaging or photo-stimulation. The apparatus and method make use of the ON-state and OFF-state pixels of a digital micromirror device (DMD) in tandem to form an ON-direction beam and an OFF-direction beam. Ring-shaped mask patterns are imposed along the ON-direction and go through a Bessel-beam forming step. The OFF-direction beam goes through time-delay control and divergence/convergence control independently from the ON-direction beam. The ON- and OFF-direction beams form multiple excitation planes with dynamically controllable locations inside a sample.

Abstract: A multi-dimensional Burst Link Access Streaming Transmission (BLAST) architecture, which provides flexible physical apparatus for balanced performance of data throughput, latency, and reliability of transmission (e.g. graceful degradation). A schedule is sent from a master node to alert targeted nodes regarding messages to be sent. The master node uses a P-Band transmission link operating a regular intervals to synchronize the system in preparation for receipt of a message over a synchronous link. Each node has the capability of sending and receiving synchronous and asynchronous messages.