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Exploiting light coherence in photoacoustic imaging

Project description

Coherent light: a tool to increase photoacoustic imaging resolution

Imaging is essential to medical diagnostics, monitoring and endoscopy; optical imaging and ultrasound are used routinely. Photoacoustic imaging is an emerging imaging modality that harnesses the photoacoustic effect, i.e. the sound generation via light absorption. It relies on the detection of ultrasound waves. Since these are weakly scattered in biological tissue, photoacoustic imaging provides acoustic-resolution images of optical absorption non-invasively at large depths relative to the purely optical techniques limited by optical scattering. The European Research Council-funded COHERENCE project aims to significantly enhance the resolution at depth, using and manipulating coherent light. They will do so by developing novel methods based on speckle illumination, wavefront shaping and super-resolution imaging.

Objective

Photoacoustic imaging is an emerging multi-wave imaging modality that couples light excitation to acoustic detection, via the photoacoustic effect (sound generation via light absorption). Photoacoustic imaging provides images of optical absorption (as opposed to optical scattering). In addition, as photoacoustic imaging relies on detecting ultrasound waves that are very weakly scattered in biological tissue, it provides acoustic-resolution images of optical absorption non-invasively at large depths (up to several cm), where purely optical techniques have a poor resolution because of multiple scattering. As for conventional purely optical approaches, optical-resolution photoacoustic microscopy can also be performed non-invasively for shallow depth (< 1 mm), or invasively at depth by endoscopic approaches. However, photoacoustic imaging suffers several limitations. For imaging at greater depths, non-invasive photoacoustic imaging in the acoustic-resolution regime is limited by a depth-to-resolution ratio of about 100, because ultrasound attenuation increases with frequency. Optical-resolution photoacoustic endoscopy has very recently been introduced as a complementary approach, but is currently limited in terms of resolution (> 6 µm) and footprint (diameter > 2 mm).
The overall objective of COHERENCE is to break the above limitations and reach diffraction-limited optical-resolution photoacoustic imaging at depth in tissue in vivo. To do so, the core concept of COHERENCE is to use and manipulate coherent light in photoacoustic imaging. Specifically, COHERENCE will develop novel methods based on speckle illumination, wavefront shaping and super-resolution imaging. COHERENCE will result in two prototypes for tissue imaging, an optical-resolution photoacoustic endoscope for minimally-invasive any-depth tissue imaging, and a non-invasive photoacoustic microscope with enhanced depth-to-resolution ratio, up to optical resolution in the multiply-scattered light regime.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

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Programme(s)

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Topic(s)

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Funding Scheme

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ERC-COG - Consolidator Grant

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Call for proposal

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(opens in new window) ERC-2015-CoG

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Host institution

UNIVERSITE GRENOBLE ALPES
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 1 932 630,00
Address
621 AVENUE CENTRALE
38058 GRENOBLE
France

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Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
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Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 2 116 290,00

Beneficiaries (2)

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