This paper showed the biological response of skin cells, and human newborn foreskin fibroblasts under the irradiation of a photonics-based 300 GHz terahertz source with a beam power of 20 ㎼ which has been usually used as terahertz source of non-destructive testing. We investigated the viability of the cells, cancer-induced biological signals, and aging under the irradiation of terahertz waves.
In this paper, we report on terahertz spectral properties of polymer medical films cross-linked by electron beam irradiation. This is significant because it shows the potentials for novel technique to monitor of crosslinking state in polymer materials. We were able to clearly distinguished to cross-linked and noncross-linked medical films, which were manufactured with a PEO based synthetic polymer, in our conducted experiments. The THz-TDS method has potential as a useful nondestructive technique for polymer inspection and analysis.
A novel terahertz (THz) otoscope is designed and fabricated to help physicians to diagnose otitis media (OM) with both THz diagnostics and conventional optical diagnostics. The inclusion of indium tin oxide (ITO) glass in the THz otoscope allows physicians to diagnose OM with both THz and conventional optical diagnostics. To determine THz diagnostics for OM, we observed reflection signals from samples behind a thin dielectric film and found that the presence of water behind the membrane could be distinguished based on THz pulse shape. We verified the potential of this tool for diagnosing OM using mouse skin tissue and a human tympanic membrane samples prior to clinical application. The presence of water absorbed by the human membrane was easily distinguished based on differences in pulse shapes and peak-to-peak amplitudes of reflected THz pulses. The potential for early OM diagnosis using the THz otoscope was confirmed by alteration of THz pulse depending on water absorption level.
There are three major challenges in cancer imaging using terahertz electromagnetic waves, which are the limited penetration depth into wet tissues, the difficulty to observe terahertz fingerprints (resonance markers) of cancers, and the poor contrast between healthy and diseased tissues. This presentation addresses such issues in detail and explains the potential solutions to them with recent results.
We present an implementation of spectrally encoded slit confocal microscopy. The method employs a rapid wavelength-swept laser as the light source and illuminates a specimen with a line focus that scans through the specimen as the wavelength sweeps. The reflected light from the specimen is imaged with a stationary line scan camera, in which the finite pixel height serves as a slit aperture. This scanner-free operation enables a simple and cost-effective implementation in a small form factor, while allowing for the three-dimensional imaging of biological samples.
We show that terahertz (THz) time-domain spectroscopy (TDS) can be used to characterize the blood. The complex optical constants of blood and its constituents, such as water, plasma, and red blood cells (RBCs), were obtained in the THz frequency region. The volume percentage of RBCs in blood was extracted and compared with the conventional RBC counter results. The THz absorption constants are shown to vary linearly with the RBC concentration in both normal saline and whole blood. The excellent linearity between the THz signal and the RBC concentration was also confirmed in a polyurethane resin tube using a THz imaging method. These results demonstrate that THz-TDS imaging can facilitate the quantitative analysis of blood.
Access to the requested content is limited to institutions that have purchased or subscribe to SPIE eBooks.
You are receiving this notice because your organization may not have SPIE eBooks access.*
*Shibboleth/Open Athens users─please
sign in
to access your institution's subscriptions.
To obtain this item, you may purchase the complete book in print or electronic format on
SPIE.org.
INSTITUTIONAL Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.
PERSONAL Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.