Journal
JOURNAL OF BIOPHOTONICS
Volume 11, Issue 2, Pages -Publisher
WILEY-V C H VERLAG GMBH
DOI: 10.1002/jbio.201700111
Keywords
human skin; in vivo; occlusion; terahertz time-domain spectroscopy
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Funding
- Research Grants Council of Hong Kong [415313, 14205514]
- Hong Kong PhD Fellowship
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In vivo terahertz (THz) imaging of human skin needs to be done in reflection geometry due to the high attenuation of THz light by water in the skin. To aid the measurement procedure, there is typically an imaging window onto which the patient places the area of interest. The window enables better pulse alignment and helps keep the patient correctly positioned during the measurement. In this paper, we demonstrate how the occlusion caused by the skin contact with the imaging window during the measurement affects the THz response. By studying both rapid point measurements and imaging over an area of a human volar forearm, we find that even 5 seconds of occlusion affects the THz response. As the occlusion time increases, the skin surface water content increases, resulting in the reduction of the amplitude of the reflected THz pulse, especially in the first 3 minutes. Furthermore, it was found that the refractive index of the volar forearm increased by 10% to 15% after 20 minutes of occlusion. In this work, we examine and propose a model for the occlusion effects due to the quartz window with a view to compensating for its influence.
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