Compressed sensing time-resolved spectrometer for quantification of light absorbers in turbid media

Time-resolved (TR) spectroscopy is well-suited to address the challenges of quantifying light absorbers in highly scattering media such as living tissue; however, current TR spectrometers are either based on expensive array detectors or rely on wavelength scanning. Here, we introduce a TR spectrometer architecture based on compressed sensing (CS) and time-correlated single-photon counting. Using both CS and basis scanning, we demonstrate that-in homogeneous and two-layer tissue-mimicking phantoms made of Intralipid and Indocyanine Green-the CS method agrees with or outperforms uncompressed approaches. Further, we illustrate the superior depth sensitivity of TR spectroscopy and highlight the potential of the device to quantify absorption changes in deeper (>1 cm) tissue layers.