Numerical and experimental investigations of dependence of photoacoustic signals from gold nanoparticles on the optical properties

Gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) are used as a contrast agent of the photoacoustic (PA) imaging. The efficiency of AuNPs has been discussed with the absorption cross section. However, the effects of the scattering of the light by AuNPs and surrounding medium on the PA signal from AuNPs have not been discussed. The PA signals from the aqueous solution of AuNPs were examined in the numerical simulation and the experiment. In the numerical simulation, the absorption and scattering cross sections of spherical and polyhedral AuNPs were calculated by Mie theory and discrete dipole approximation. Monte Carlo simulation calculated the absorbed light energy in the aqueous solution of AuNPs. Based on the PA wave equation, the PA signals were simulated. In the experiment, the PA signal from the aqueous solution of AuNP was measured by use of a piezoelectric film and a Q-switched Nd:YAG laser operated at 532 nm. The results of the numerical simulation and the experiment agreed well. In the numerical simulation and the experiment, a single Au nanocube with 50-nm edge generated the peak value of the PA signal significantly. It was approximately 350 times and twice as large as the peak values of the spherical AuNPs with 10- and 50-nm diameters, respectively. The peak value of the PA signal depended on both the absorption and scattering coefficients of the AuNPs and the surrounding medium. The peak value increased with the scattering coefficient in a quadratic manner. The character of the temporal profile of the PA signal such as full width at half maximum depended on the scattering coefficient of the AuNPs.     

Numerical study on trapping and guiding of nanoparticles in a flow using scattering field of laser light

Optical trapping and guiding using laser have been proven to be useful for non-contact and non-invasive manipulation of small objects such as biological cells, organelles within cells, and dielectric particles. We have numerically investigated so far the motion of a Brownian particle suspended in still water under the illumination of a speckle pattern generated by the interference of coherent light scattered by a rough object. In the present study, we investigate numerically the motion of a particle in a water flow under the illumination of a speckle pattern that is at rest or in motion. Trajectory of the particle is simulated in relation with its size, flow velocity, maximum irradiance, and moving velocity of the speckle pattern to confirm the feasibility of the present method for performing optical trapping and guiding of the particle in the flow.     

Multispectral hyperbolic incoherent holography

This paper presents a new method of multispectral hyperbolic incoherent holography in which a hyperbolic volume interferogram was directly measured by an appropriate designed interferometer. This method enables to obtain a set of spectral components of three-dimensional images and continuous spectra for spatially incoherent, polychromatic objects. We introduced a calibration method of a phase aberration of the interferometer. The spectral resolution and spatial resolutions are investigated based on analytical solution of impulse response function of hyperbolic holography. From experimental results and theoretical predictions, the validity of the calibration method was confirmed. Experimental results agree with the theoretical ones. Consequently, the retrieved images obtained by the method are shown to demonstrate the performance of the method.     

Laser speckle reduction using motionless image conduits

We have demonstrated a speckle reduction method using motionless image conduits (MICs). Different experimental conditions by introducing the high-coherence HeNe laser and the low-coherence laser diode (LD) as the illumination light sources, by employing the straight MIC and the curved MIC as the speckle reduction components, and by recording speckle images without (objective speckle) and with (subjective speckle) the imaging lens mounted on the CCD camera are conducted, respectively. The most efficient speckle reduction condition is found by the combination of using the LD and the curved MIC, where the objective speckle contrast ratio is reduced from 0.7378 to 0.1725. Experimental results are discussed, and the causes for these speckle reduction efficiency changes are given.