Optical phase conjugation for turbidity suppression in biological samples

Elastic optical scattering, the dominant light-interaction process in biological tissues, prevents tissues from being transparent. Although scattering may appear stochastic, it is in fact deterministic in nature. We show that, despite experimental imperfections, optical phase conjugation (λ = 532 nm) can force a transmitted light field to retrace its trajectory through a biological target and recover the original light field. For a 0.69-mm-thick chicken breast tissue section, we can enhance point-source light return by a factor of ~5 x 10^3 and achieve a light transmission enhancement factor of 3.8 within a collection angle of 29°. Additionally, we find that the reconstruction's quality, measured by the width of the reconstructed point source, is independent of tissue thickness (up to a thickness of 0.69 mm). This phenomenon may be used to enhance light transmission through tissue, enable measurement of small tissue movements, and form the basis of new tissue imaging techniques

High-resolution second-harmonic optical coherence tomography of collagen in rat-tail tendon

A high-resolution second-harmonic optical coherence tomography (SH-OCT) system is demonstrated using a spectrum broadened femtosecond Ti:sapphire laser. An axial resolution of 4.2 μm at the second-harmonic wave center wavelength of 400 nm has been achieved. Because the SH-OCT system uses the second-harmonic generation signals that strongly depend on the orientation, polarization, and local symmetry properties of chiral molecules, this technique provides unique contrast enhancement to conventional optical coherence tomography. The system is applied to image biological tissues of the rat-tail tendon. Highly organized collagen fibrils in the rat-tail tendon can be visualized in recorded images. © 2005 American Institute of Physics