Liquid crystals exhibit large electro-optic effects which make them useful for a variety of applications as fast, compact, and tunable spectral filters, phase modulators, polarization controllers, and optical shutters. They were largely developed for liquid crystal displays and in the last decade for optical telecommunications, however their application in the field of optical imaging just star...

A novel optical frequency-domain imaging system is demonstrated that employs a passive optical demodulation circuit and a chirped digital acquisition clock derived from a voltage-controlled oscillator. The demodulation circuit allows the separation of signals from positive and negative depths to better than 50 dB, thereby eliminating depth degeneracy and doubling the imaging depth range. Our sy...

Liquid crystal (LC) devices exhibit fast and strong tuning and switching capabilities using small voltages and can be miniaturized thus have a great potential to be used with miniature optical imaging systems for biomedical applications. LC devices designed specifically for integration into biomedical optical imaging systems are presented. Using a combination of one or two LC retarders we obtai...

The quantized vibration of chemical bonds provides a way of detecting specific molecules in a complex tissue environment. Unlike pure optical methods, for which imaging depth is limited to a few hundred micrometers by significant optical scattering, photoacoustic detection of vibrational absorption breaks through the optical diffusion limit by taking advantage of diffused photons and weak acous...

IMAGING an object located in a highly scattering medium is a challenging problem with a wide range of applications in different fields: medicine, industry, defence and space. A better understanding of photon migration in turbid media has resulted in a surge of research interest in optical biomedical imaging. Limitations of X-ray imaging in detecting small lesions in tissues, in distinguishing m...

This is the textbook and reference resource that instructors, students, and researchers in biomedical optics have been waiting for. Comprehensive and up-to-date, it covers a broad range of areas in biomedical optics, from light interactions at the single-photon and single-biomolecule levels, to the diffusion regime of light propagation in tissue. Subjects covered include spectroscopic technique...

The current status and challenges of small animal non-invasive imaging is briefly reviewed. The advantages of non-invasive studies on living animals versus post-mortem studies are evaluated. An argument is advanced that even in post-mortem situations, non-invasive imaging may play an important role in efficiently characterizing small animal phenotypes as well as pathology. Issues of data interp...