[Design and application of noninvasive tissue recognition imaging in tomography of human skin and crystal structure]

Cosmetic industry grows fast in recent years. To reveal the image of dermal structure, it is necessary to apply three-dimensional medical imaging technology. To reduce the invasiveness of laser source on tissues, tissue recognition imaging is proposed to retrieve the intrinsic optical property, namely, the reflection spectrum of every scanned point for imaging. The reflection spectra of main kinds of skin tissue, such as melanin, collagen and hemoglobin, were established as reference database. Broad-band rays were then employed to derive the reflection spectrum of each scanned sample element; the tissue type of the scanned point was identified by cross-correlation of the derived spectrum and the database. In imaging program, all scanned points were filled in with their corresponding tissue color, e.g., black for melanin, white for collagen, or red for hemoglobin, and finally the colored skin tomography resulted. Tissue recognition imaging has merits of easy configuration, low cost, color imaging, high resolution and real non-invasiveness. Substituting LED modules for its spectrometer, tissue recognition imaging is promising to be miniaturized as personal and portable skincare devices, which have great potential in future cosmetic market.