Introduction to Biophotonics

Catalog description

Biophotonics, or biomedical optics, is a field dealing with the application of optical science and imaging technology to biomedical problems, including clinical applications. The course introduces basic concepts in electromagnetism and light tissue interactions, including optical properties of tissue, absorption, fluorescence, and light scattering. Imaging methods will be described, including fluorescence imaging, Raman spectroscopy, optical coherence tomography, diffuse optical spectroscopy, and photoacoustic tomography. The basic physics and engineering of each imaging technique are emphasized. Their relevance to human disease diagnostic and clinical applications will be included, such as breast cancer imaging and monitoring, 3D retinal imaging, ways of non-invasive tumor detection, as well as functional brain imaging in infants. Pre-requisite: College level physics covering electromagnetism and optics or permission of the instructor.