Abstract
We show that terahertz (THz) time-domain spectroscopy (TDS) can be used to characterize the blood. The complex optical constants of blood and its constituents, such as water, plasma, and red blood cells (RBCs), were obtained in the THz frequency region. The volume percentage of RBCs in blood was extracted and compared with the conventional RBC counter results. The THz absorption constants are shown to vary linearly with the RBC concentration in both normal saline and whole blood. The excellent linearity between the THz signal and the RBC concentration was also confirmed in a polyurethane resin tube using a THz imaging method. These results demonstrate that THz-TDS imaging can facilitate the quantitative analysis of blood.
Highlights
Terahertz (THz) technology has attracted interest as an effective analysis method to characterize the molecular dynamics of biomaterials
In the transmission mode system, one beam was focused onto a p-InAs wafer to generate THz pulses, whereas the other beam was focused onto a photoconductive antenna (PCA) fabricated on low-temperature-grown GaAs (LT-GaAs) to probe the THz pulses.[6]
The refractive index and absorption coefficients of the samples were obtained using the differences in amplitude and phase signals between the frequency domain signals with and without a sample, as shown in Fig. 2.3 These constants decreased in the order of water, plasma, blood, and red blood cells (RBCs)
Summary
Terahertz (THz) technology has attracted interest as an effective analysis method to characterize the molecular dynamics of biomaterials This is because the majority of the conformational modes of water and biomolecules are contained in this frequency region.[1,2,3,4,5,6,7] The high sensitivity of THz waves allows diagnostic imaging of abnormal tissues, such as malignant tumors and burns, using differences in the concentrations of interstitial water or body fluid components in the tissues.[6,7,8] Studies of blood, tissue, and lymph fluids, as well as digestive juices, in the THz frequency range, have the potential to enhance the sensitivity of diagnostic images and expand the range of analyzable diseases. E.g., protein and nucleic acids in blood is acquired by molecular profiling methods, such as the western blot and the polymerase chain reaction.[13] Flow cytometry has been employed to count and sort cells These invasive and time-consuming methods require blood sampling.[13] Optical
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