In the treatment of most newly discovered solid cancerous tumors, surgery remains the first treatment option. An important factor in the success of these operations is the precise identification of oncological safety margins to ensure the complete removal of the tumor without affecting much of the neighboring healthy tissue. Here we report on the possibility of applying femtosecond Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) combined with Machine Learning algorithms as an alternative discrimination technique to differentiate cancerous tissue. The emission spectra following the ablation on thin fixed liver and breast postoperative samples were recorded with high spatial resolution; adjacent stained sections served as a reference for tissue identification by classical pathological analysis. In a proof of principle test performed on liver tissue, Artificial Neural Networks and Random Forest algorithms were able to differentiate both healthy and tumor tissue with a very high Classification Accuracy of around 0.95. The ability to identify unknown tissue was performed on breast samples from different patients, also providing a high level of discrimination. Our results show that LIBS with femtosecond lasers is a technique with potential to be used in clinical applications for rapid identification of tissue type in the intraoperative surgical field.
Temporally delayed, phase-locked coherent pairs of near IR femtosecond laser pulses were employed to study electronic coherences in molecular Nd 3 + -complexes at room temperature. Dissolved and solid complexes were studied under a confocal microscope set-up with fluorescence detection. The observed electronic coherence on a few hundred femtoseconds time scale is modulated by additional coherent wave packet dynamics, which we attribute mainly to be vibrational in nature. In future, the complexes may serve as prototypes for possible applications in quantum information technology.
The Cover Feature illustrates the creation and probing of a long‐lived electronic coherence in molecular Nd‐complexes by IR femtosecond laser pulses. The electronic coherence is observed via the Δτ‐dependent modulation of the fluorescence signal and shows the influence of additional vibrational dynamics. The Nd‐complexes may serve as prototypes for possible future applications in quantum information technology. More information can be found in the Research Article by Hendrike Braun and co‐workers.
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