X-ray mammography is the current gold standard for breast cancer screening. Microcalcifications and other features
which are helpful to the radiologist for early diagnostics are often buried in the noise generated by the surrounding
dense tissue. So image processing techniques are required to enhance these important features to improve the
sensitivity of detection. An innovative technique is demonstrated for recording a hologram of the mammogram. It is
recorded on a thin polymer film of Bacteriorhodopsin (bR) as photo induced isomerization grating containing the
interference pattern between the object beam containing the Fourier spatial frequency components of the
mammogram and a reference beam. The hologram contains all the enhanced features of the mammogram. A significant innovation of the technique is that the enhanced components in the processed image can be viewed by the
radiologist in time scale. A technician can record the movie and when the radiologist looks at the movie at his
convenience, freezing the frame as and when desired, he would see the microcalcifications as the brightest and last
long in time. He would also observe lesions with intensity decreasing as their size increases. The same bR film can
be used repeatedly for recording holograms with different mammograms. The technique is versatile and a different
frequency band can be chosen to be optimized by changing the reference beam intensity. The experimental
arrangement can be used for mammograms in screen film or digital format.
Spectroscopic observations are presented for carbon nanotubes grown on silicon and quartz substrates in a hexagonal honeycomb configuration using self-assembly nanosphere lithography and plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition method. A white light source is used as an incident beam and light reflected from the surface of the carbon nanotubes results in a distinctive signature in the reflected spectrum. A comparison of non-periodic arrays and periodic arrays of
carbon nanotubes show that the reflectance signature is only observed when the carbon nanotubes are oriented in a periodic array. Further observations regarding the light antenna effect observed in nonperiodic arrays are also reported. Theoretical curves show good agreement to experimentally observed phenomena. The unique optical properties of the arrays combined with the excellent mechanical and electrical properties of carbon nanotubes indicate that these materials may find many uses in the field of optoelectronics.
Real-time nonlinear optical Fourier filtering for medical image processing is demonstrated, exploiting light modulating characteristics of thin films of the biophotonic material bacteriorhodopsin (bR). The nonlinear transmission of bR films for a 442 nm probe beam with a 568 nm control beam and vice versa is experimentally studied in detail. The spatial frequency information carried by the blue probe beam is selectively manipulated in the bR film by changing the position and intensity of the yellow control beam. The feasibility of the technique is first established with different shapes and sizes of phantom objects. The technique is applied to filter out low spatial frequencies corresponding to soft dense breast tissue and displaying only high spatial frequencies corresponding to microcalcifications in clinical screen film mammograms. With the aid of an electrically addressed spatial light modulator (SLM), we successfully adapt the technique for processing digital phantoms and digital mammograms. Unlike conventional optical spatial filtering techniques that use masks, the technique proposed can easily accommodate the changes in size and shape of details in a mammogram.
Carbon nanotubes were grown on silicon and quartz substrates in a honeycomb configuration using self-assembly nanosphere lithography and plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition methods. Photonic nanoarrays were fabricated with varying spacing and carbon nanotube height. Both periodic and nonperiodic arrays were produced and evaluated. Optical properties of the arrays were studied and related to array geometry. Three dimensional diffraction maps were created that reveal the manner in which the nanoarrays interact with visible light. The unique optical properties of the arrays combined with the excellent mechanical and electrical properties of carbon nanotubes indicates that these materials may find many uses in the field of optoelectronics.
Carbon nanotubes (CNT) have been grown in a honeycomb configuration on silicon substrates using nanosphere self-assembly and plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition. The optical properties of the arrays were also studied. Diffraction efficiency was found to be a function of the wavelength, angle of incidence and state of polarization of incident light. The unique optical properties of the arrays combined with the excellent mechanical and electrical properties of carbon nanotubes indicates that these materials may find many uses in the field of optoelectronics. In addition to their optical properties, periodic CNT arrays have a host of other unique electromagnetic and mechanical properties that may be exploited for numerous applications. Polarization measurements indicate that the intensity of both the diffracted light and diffusely scattered light is dependent on wavelength and angle of incidence. These arrays not only reflect and diffract light, but can also have a photonic band gap in, or around, the visible frequency range. The precise frequency location and size of this gap can be controlled by the structural and material parameters of the arrays.
A comparison is made of two, laser-induced-damage assessment techniques. The first technique monitors the sample for changes in linear transmission after high-energy laser illumination. With the second technique, an image is transmitted through the sample, after high-energy laser illumination, at the position of incidence. Both single and multiple shot data are considered. Results show the imaging technique to be an efficient method by which to unambiguously discern the onset of image-degrading laser- damage, regardless of detector noise, shot-to-shot variations and sample inhomogeneities. Practically speaking, the imaging technique is relatively easy to incorporate into a laser-based experimental system and is particularly relevant to the assessment of optical systems for imaging.
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