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Molecular contrast in optical coherence tomography by use of a pump-probe technique
K Divakar Rao1, Michael A Choma, Siavash Yazdanfar
1Department of Biomedical Engineering, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina 27708, USA.
Abstract:
We describe a novel technique for contrast enhancement in optical coherence tomography (OCT) that makes possible molecular-specific imaging for what is believed to be the first time. A pump-probe technique is employed in which a pulsed pump laser is tuned to ground-state absorption in a molecule of interest. The location of the target molecule population is derived from the resulting transient absorption of OCT sample-arm light acting as probe light. A signal processing technique for three-dimensional localization of the transient absorption signal is described, and preliminary results exhibiting OCT contrast from methylene blue dye in multilayer and scattering phantoms are presented.