Time-domain diffuse optical tomography using silicon photomultipliers: feasibility study.

Laura Di Sieno,Edoardo Martinenghi,Judy Zouaoui,Antonio Pifferi,Lionel Hervé,Jacques Derouard,Jean-Marc Dinten,Alberto Dalla Mora,Andrea Farina

doi:10.1117/1.jbo.21.11.116002

Abstract

Silicon photomultipliers (SiPMs) have been very recently introduced as the most promising detectors in the field of diffuse optics, in particular due to the inherent low cost and large active area. We also demonstrate the suitability of SiPMs for time-domain diffuse optical tomography (DOT). The study is based on both simulations and experimental measurements. Results clearly show excellent performances in terms of spatial localization of an absorbing perturbation, thus opening the way to the use of SiPMs for DOT, with the possibility to conceive a new generation of low-cost and reliable multichannel tomographic systems.

Highlights

Diffuse optical tomography (DOT) is an attractive noninvasive imaging technique that allows three-dimensional (3-D) volumetric reconstructions of optical properties within highly scattering media down to a depth of few centimeters
SiPMs are proposed as potentially revolutionary detectors for TD-DOT due to their unique features, bringing together the advantages of photomultiplier tubes (PMTs) and single-photon avalanche diodes (SPADs)
Our aim was to validate their performance on heterogeneous phantoms to evaluate the impact of their inherent disadvantages: a slow tail and low dynamic range in the temporal response to single photons, a high background noise, and unknown stability for long measurement times in time-correlated single-photon counting (TCSPC) applications

Summary

Introduction

Diffuse optical tomography (DOT) is an attractive noninvasive imaging technique that allows three-dimensional (3-D) volumetric reconstructions of optical properties within highly scattering media (e.g., biological tissues) down to a depth of few centimeters. The CW regime is the simplest one in terms of instrumentation, but the information content brought by one single measurement is poor. It does not allow disentangling absorption from scattering contributions while this is, in principle, feasible in both FD and TD techniques.[2] only the TD approach has the added advantage of encoding different average penetration depths in the photon arrival time.[7,8] a time-gated analysis[9] and/or detection[10,11] of the reflectance curve allows one to separate information coming from different layers of the investigated medium.

Objectives

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Results

Conclusion