Lipid composition of atherosclerotic plaques is considered to be highly related to plaque vulnerability. Therefore, a specific diagnostic or imaging modality that can sensitively evaluate plaques' necrotic core is desirable in atherosclerosis imaging. In this regard, intravascular photoacoustic (IVPA) imaging is an emerging plaque detection technique that provides lipid-specific chemical information from an arterial wall with great optical contrast and long acoustic penetration depth. While, in the near-infrared window, a 1210-nm optical source is usually chosen for IVPA applications since lipids exhibit a strong absorption peak at that wavelength, the sensitivity problem arises in the conventional single-ended systems as other arterial tissues also show some degree of absorption near that spectral region, thereby generating undesirably interfering photoacoustic (PA) signals. A theory of the high-frequency frequency-domain differential photoacoustic radar (DPAR) modality is introduced as a unique detection technique for accurate and molecularly specific evaluation of vulnerable plaques. By assuming two low-power continuous-wave optical sources at ∼1210 and ∼970 nm in a differential manner, DPAR theory and the corresponding simulation/experiment studies suggest an imaging modality that is only sensitive and specific to the spectroscopically defined imaging target, cholesterol.
We demonstrate the feasibility of using optical coherence tomography (OCT) to detect and image an electro-kinetic response: electric-field induced optical changes (EIOC) in soft biological tissues. A low-frequency electric field was applied to ex vivo samples of porcine heart tissues, while OCT signals were acquired continuously. Experimental results show that the amplitude of the OCT signal change is proportional to the amplitude and inversely proportional to the frequency of the applied electric field. We show that the nonconductive component of the sample was eliminated in the normalized EIOC image. To the best our knowledge, this is the first time a two-dimensional image related to the electro-kinetic response of soft tissues is obtained with depth resolution. Since electro-kinetic properties can change during cancerogenesis, EIOC imaging can potentially be used for cancer detection.
The transition from benchtop to clinical system often requires the medical technology to be robust, portable and accurate. This poses a challenge to current swept source optical coherence tomography imaging systems, as the bulk of the systems footprint is due to laser components. With the recent advancement of micromachining technology, we demonstrate the characterization of a microelectromechanical system (MEMS) swept source laser for optical coherence tomography imaging (OCT). This laser utilizes a 2 degree of freedom MEMS scanning mirror and a diffraction grating, which are arranged in a Littrow configuration. This resulted in a swept source laser that was capable of scanning at 23.165 kHz (bidirectional) or 11.582 kHz (unidirectional). The free spectral range of the laser was ≈ 100 nm with a central wavelength of ≈ 1330 nm. The 6 dB roll off depth was measured to be at 2.5 mm. Furthermore, the structural morphology of a human finger and tadpole (Xenopus laevis) were evaluated. The overall volumetric footprint of the laser source was measured to be 70 times less than non-MEMS swept sources. Continued work on the miniaturization of OCT system is on going. It is hypothesized that the overall laser size can be reduced for suitable OCT imaging for a point of care application.
A novel (to our knowledge) dual-core ytterbium (Yb(3+)) doped fiber, as an optically pumped amplifier, boosts the output power from a 1060 nm swept source laser beyond 250 mW, while providing a wavelength tuning range of 93 nm, for optical coherence tomography (OCT) imaging. The design of the dual-core Yb-doped fiber amplifier and its multiple wavelength optical pumping scheme to optimize output bandwidth are discussed. Use of the dual-core fiber amplifier showed no appreciable degradation to the coherence length of the seed laser. The signal intensity improvement of this amplifier is demonstrated on a multichannel in vivo OCT imaging system at 1060 nm.
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