Abstract

In scattering media such as biological tissue, the heterogeneous refractive index distribution causes light to scatter, which makes the media look opaque and prevents us from focusing light beyond ~1 mm deep inside the media to achieve optical imaging and manipulation. Hence, the ability to focus light deep inside scattering media is highly desired, and it could revolutionize biophotonics by enabling deep-tissue non-invasive high-resolution optical microscopy, optical tweezing, optogenetics, micro-surgery, and phototherapy.

To break the optical diffusion limit and focus light deep inside scattering media, optical phase conjugation based wavefront shaping techniques, such as time-reversed ultrasonically encoded (TRUE) optical focusing, are being actively developed. In this dissertation, I will describe our efforts to improve the performance (speed, focusing quality and focusing depth) of optical phase conjugation for future in vivo applications. Remarkably, we have focused light through tissue-mimicking phantoms up to 96 mm thick, and through ex vivo chicken breast tissue up to 25 mm thick.

Committee Chair

Lihong V. Wang

Committee Members

Samuel Achilefu, Mark Anastasio, Timothy Holy, Jung-Tsung Shen

Comments

Permanent URL: https://doi.org/10.7936/K7PV6HSV

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Author's Department

Biomedical Engineering

Author's School

McKelvey School of Engineering

Document Type

Dissertation

Date of Award

Winter 12-15-2016

Language

English (en)

Author's ORCID

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5837-4908

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