Complex degree of mutual anisotropy of linear birefringence and optical activity of biological tissues in diagnostics of prostate cancer

We present theoretical fundamentals of polarization and correlation analysis of the optical anisotropy of biological tissues. Results of measurements of coordinate distributions of the complex degree of mutual anisotropy (CDMA) that are formed by birefringent structures of the prostate tissue with benign and malignant changes are compared. Magnitudes and ranges of variation of statistical (the firstto fourth-order distribution moments) and correlation (excess of autocorrelation functions) parameters of the coordinate CDMA distributions of histological sections of the prostate postoperative bioptic material are studied. Objective criteria of the diagnostics of the appearance of pathology and of the differentiation of the degree of its severity are determined.     

High-resolution ultrasound-modulated optical tomography in biological tissues

We present a novel implementation of high-resolution ultrasound-modulated optical tomography that, based on optical contrast, can image several millimeters deep into soft biological tissues. A long-cavity confocal Fabry-Perot interferometer, which provides a large etendue and a short response time, was used to detect the ultrasound-modulated coherent light that traversed the scattering biological tissue. Using 15-MHz ultrasound, we imaged with high-contrast light-absorbing structures placed >3 mm below the surface of chicken breast tissue. The resolution along the axial and the lateral directions with respect to the ultrasound propagation direction was better than 70 and 120 microm, respectively. The resolution can be scaled down further by use of higher ultrasound frequencies. This technology is complementary to other imaging technologies, such as confocal microscopy and optical-coherence tomography, and has the potential for broad biomedical applications.     

Complex degree of mutual anisotropy of extracellular matrix of biological tissues

We study the possibility of the differentiation of optical anisotropy properties of biological tissues in different physiological states by means of statistical analysis of coordinate distributions of a new analytical parameter, the complex degree of mutual anisotropy of a network of birefringent filament-like protein crystals.     

Continuous optical coherence tomography monitoring of nanoparticles accumulation in biological tissues

In this study, dynamics of nanoparticles penetrating and accumulating in biotissue (healthy skin) was investigated in vivo by the noninvasive method of optical coherence tomography (OCT). Gold nanoshells and titanium dioxide nanoparticles were studied. The processes of the nanoparticles penetration and accumulation in biotissue are accompanied by the changes in optical properties of skin which affect the OCT images. The continuous OCT monitoring of the process of the nanoparticles penetration into skin showed that these changes appeared in 30 min after application of nanoparticles on the surface; the time of accumulation of maximal nanoparticles concentration in skin was observed in period of 1.5–3 h after application. Numerical processing of the OCT signal exhibited the increase in contrast between upper and lower parts of dermis and contrast decay of the hair follicle border during 60–150 min. The transmission electron microscopy technique confirmed accumulation of the both types of nanoparticles in biotissue. The novelty of this study is presentation of OCT ability to in vivo monitor dynamics of nanoparticles penetration and their re-distribution within living tissues.     

Controlling optical properties of biological tissues: II. Coherent optical methods for studying the tissue structure

Correlation and polarization properties of dynamic speckle fields formed upon scanning in vitro human sclera samples subjected to immersion agents with a focused laser beam were studied. The immersion agent diffusion into the tissue reduces the relative refractive index of structure-forming elements (collagen fibrils) with respect to the base sclera substance and thus stimulates the passage from multiple to single scattering of a probing beam. Experimental data are presented on the evolution of the autocorrelation function of intensity fluctuations and the intensity ratio between polarized and depolarized components of laser radiation passed through a sclera layer due to artificial clarification of the tissue samples analyzed. Possible applications of the developed method to the tissue structure diagnostics are discussed.     

Time-resolved fluorescence polarization anisotropy and optical imaging of Cybesin in cancerous and normal prostate tissues

Time-resolved polarization-dependent fluorescence of Cybesin in solution and in cancerous and normal prostate tissues were measured. The polarization preservation property of Cybesin in tissue was observed. The fluorescence intensity emitted from a Cybesin-stained cancerous tissue area was found to be much stronger than that from a Cybesin-stained normal tissue area indicating that cancerous prostate tissue takes-up more Cybesin than normal tissue. The polarization anisotropy of Cybesin contained in cancerous prostate tissue was found to be larger than that of Cybesin in normal prostate tissue indicating that a larger degree of polarization was preserved in the Cybesin-stained cancerous tissue due to structures. A static anisotropy component from the emission of cell-bonded Cybesin molecules in tissue and a time-dependent anisotropy component from the emission of un-bonded Cybesin molecules were determined and discussed. The static anisotropy value of Cybesin in stained cancerous tissue was found to be much larger than that in stained normal tissue. The fluorescence polarization difference imaging technique based on the polarization preservation of Cybesin was used to enhance the image contrast between cancerous and normal prostate tissue areas.     

Procedures of optical control dedicated for laser welding process of biological tissues

In this contribution, an optical method of controlling the state of soft biological tissues in real time exposed to laser radiation is discussed. The method is based on the assumption that the change dynamics of the amplitude of the scattered diagnostic radiation (λ = 635 nm) is compatible with the change dynamics of the tissue inner structure exposed to the Nd:YAG laser radiation (λ = 1064 nm). In this method, the measurement of the tissue temperature is omitted. Exemplary results of the laboratory research on this method and an interpretation of the results are presented.     

Quadrature fringes wide-field optical coherence tomography and its applications to biological tissues

We propose and demonstrate quadrature fringes wide-field optical coherence tomography (QF WF OCT) to expand an optical Hilbert transformation to two-dimensions. This OCT simultaneously measures two quadrature interference images using a single InGaAs CCD camera to obtain en face OCT images. The axial and lateral resolutions are measured at 29 μm in air and 70 μm limited by a pixel size of camera using a superluminescent diode with a wavelength of 1.3 μm as the light source; the system sensitivity is determined to be −90 dB. The area of the en face OCT images is 4.0 mm × 4.0 mm (160 × 160  pixels). The OCT images are measured axially with steps of 10 μm. The en face OCT images of a in vivo human fingertip and a in situ rat brain are three-dimensionally measured up to the depth of about 3 mm with some degradations of a lateral resolution.     

Surface-induced optical anisotropy of inhomogeneous media

We demonstrate that the presence of interfaces induces anisotropy in the optical properties of thin inhomogeneous layers. Several mechanisms are discussed that can control the properties of this surface-induced anisotropy. We found that the effective refractive indices for s- and p-polarized fields are different and depend on the thickness of the layer, concentration and optical properties of inclusions in the layer, and the angle of incidence.     

Simple parametric representations of the polarization optical properties of birefringent biological tissues in reflection polarization spectroscopy

The use of polarization reflection spectroscopy for investigating complex scattering media, including orientationally ordered optically anisotropic elements, requires a special choice of output parameters (represented by spectra) that characterize polarized light scattering by objects under study because the standard characteristics, such as the Mueller matrices, depend on the azimuthal orientation of the medium. We propose compact and convenient sets of experimentally determined output parameters that involve separate detection of co- and cross-polarized components of light scattered by a sample irradiated by a normally incident linearly polarized beam and include characteristics invariant with respect to the azimuthal rotation of the sample.     

Effect of purification,dehydration, and coagulation processes on the optical parameters of biological tissues

In this study,the effects of purification,dehydration,and coagulation processes on the absorption and reduced scattering coefficients of chicken liver tissues have been investigated by using a single integrating sphere system.The purification process performed on the tissue samples to remove blood residue has been found to cause a slight change in the optical parameters.Although the dehydration process brings about an increase in the absorption coefficient due to the water loss,no direct relationship has been observed between the reduced scattering coefficient and the dehydration level of the tissue.In addition,it has been observed that there was a relatively small increase in the absorption coefficient and a significant increase in the reduced scattering coefficient after the coagulation process.Therefore,it can be said that the optical penetration depth decreased significantly after dehydration and coagulation processes unlike blood purification.Moreover,fluence rate distributions inside the fresh,blood purified,dehydrated,and coagulated tissue models have been investigated by using the Monte Carlo modeling of photon transport in multilayered tissues simulation code.     

Deeply penetrating photoacoustic tomography in biological tissues enhanced with an optical contrast agent

Photoacoustic tomography (PAT) in a circular scanning configuration was developed to image deeply embedded optical heterogeneity in biological tissues. While the optical penetration was maximized with near-infrared laser pulses of 800-nm wavelength, the optical contrast was enhanced by Indocyanine Green (ICG) dye whose absorption peak matched the laser wavelength. This optimized PAT was able to image objects embedded at depths of as much as 5.2 cm, 6.2 times the 1/e optical penetration depth, in chicken breast muscle at a resolution of <780 microm and a sensitivity of <7 pmol of ICG in blood. The resolution was found to deteriorate slowly with increasing imaging depth. The effects of detection bandwidth on the quality of images acquired simultaneously by four different ultrasonic transducers are described.     

Polarization anisotropy in the optical properties of silicon ellipsoids

A new real space quantum mechanical approach with local field effects included is applied to the calculation of the optical properties of silicon nanocrystals. Silicon ellipsoids are studied and the role of surface polarization is discussed in details. In particular, surface polarization is shown to be responsible for a strong optical anisotropy in silicon ellipsoids, much more pronounced with respect to the case in which only quantum confinement effects are considered. The static dielectric constant and the absorption spectra are calculated, showing that the perpendicular and parallel components have a very different dependence on the ellipsoid aspect ratio. Then, a comparison with the classical dielectric model is performed, showing that the model only works for large and regular structures, but it fails for thin elongated ellipsoids.     

On the possibility of applying a mirror ellipsoid of revolution to determining optical properties of biological tissues

Possibilities of a measuring system that uses an ellipsoidal mirror for determining the coefficients of scattering ?? _s and absorption ?? _a , as well as the anisotropy factor g, of a biological tissue are studied. Based on the measured values of diffuse reflection and total and collimated transmission and on a simulation by the inverse Monte Carlo method, the values of optical parameters of porcine epidermis were obtained in vitro at a wavelength of 632.8 nm.     

Polarization transformers for optical anisotropy: II. Transformation of properties of optical anisotropy of reciprocal and nonreciprocal elements

The methods of transformation of an arbitrary phase optical anisotropy using a set of quarter-wave plates are considered. For this purpose, we use a formal analogy between the Jones matrices of these anisotropic elements and the matrices of transformation of the polarization basis states. We consider all types of reciprocal and nonreciprocal optical phase anisotropy. We show that the minimum set of anisotropic elements sufficient for such a transformation is a set of four quarter-wave plates. For nonreciprocal systems, this set should be complemented with Faraday rotators, whose number depends on the initial and final type of the nonreciprocity.     

Fluctuations of local optical anisotropy of island films

A method for the determination of the island film structure parameters by measuring fluctuations of optical characteristics of small areas of the film is proposed and implemented. The extinction fluctuations of the laser beam are measured experimentally in a focal spot, in which the polarization of radiation is modulated in time and which is movable over the film. From the optical data thus obtained, the optical absorption anisotropy of the nanometer-size islands of the film is evaluated. It is shown that this characteristic has a considerable frequency dispersion in the region of plasmon resonances of the nanoparticles.     

Polarization holography for measuring photoinduced optical anisotropy

A new experimental method for measuring the optical anisotropy induced at photochemical reactions is proposed. The method is based on polarization holography and is a zero-background high sensitive technique. It is used to measure the molecular dichroism of fluorescein and the birefrigence induced at the additional photopolymerization of PMMA.     

Polarization anisotropy in vertical-cavity semiconductor optical amplifiers

The polarization-dependent gain (PDG) characteristics of a vertical-cavity semiconductor optical amplifier (VCSOA) are measured, and the case of the PDG is determined. It is often assumed that the polarization states of a VCSOA are degenerate because of the circular geometry of the device. This assumption is not true in practice, and it is found that VCSOAs possess a dominant linear polarization state and a small difference in frequency between polarization states. The difference in resonant frequencies causes the PDG of the VCSOA. Measurements of the polarization state show that the cause of the splitting is electro-optic birefringence.     

Mechanisms of optical anisotropy induction in azopolymer films

The process of optical anisotropy indiction in azopolymer films upon irradiation by polarized UV light is studied by means of UV and IR birefringence spectroscopy. A substantial dependence of the character of the relaxation of the induced anisotropy on the exposure time to the exciting light is revealed: whereas the process of anisotropy induction is reversible at small exposure times, at large exposure times the induced anisotropy virtually does not relax and even increases after the irradiation is terminated. A difference between kinetic curves of dichroism and birefringence induction is shown: at exposure times corresponding to the saturation of the induced dichroism a slow increase in the birefringence curve is observed. Results obtained are explained in terms of the assumption of partial ordering of macrochain fragments in irradiated films. The assumption is substantiated by measurements of polarized IR spectra. Institute of Physics of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, 46, Nauka Ave., Kiev, 252650, Ukraine. Translated from Zhurnal Prikladnoi Spektroskopii, Vol. 65, No. 1, pp. 121–125, January–February, 1998.