Abstract
The absorption of nanosecond laser pulses induces rapid thermo-elastic deformation in tissue. A sub-micrometer scale displacement occurs within a few microseconds after the pulse arrival. In this Letter, we investigate the laser-induced thermo-elastic deformation using a 1.5 MHz phase-sensitive optical coherence tomography (OCT) system. A displacement image can be reconstructed, which enables a new modality of phase-sensitive OCT, called thermo-elastic OCT. An analysis of the results shows that the optical absorption is a dominating factor for the displacement. Thermo-elastic OCT is capable of visualizing inclusions that do not appear on the structural OCT image, providing additional tissue type information.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Journal | Optics Letters |
| Volume | 42 |
| Issue number | 17 |
| Pages (from-to) | 3466-3469 |
| Number of pages | 4 |
| ISSN | 0146-9592 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 01.09.2017 |
Funding
Funding. Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO) (104003006); Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) (DFG—HU 1006/6); H2020 European Research Council (ERC) (ERC CoG ENCOMOLE-2i, 646669). Acknowledgment. The authors acknowledge Geert Springeling for his contribution to the probe manufacturing and phantom preparation. T. Wang and M. Wu acknowledge support by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) ZonMW. T. Pfeiffer, W. Wieser, and R. Huber acknowledge support by the German Research Foundation and the European Union. †These authors contributed equally to this Letter.
