Wavefront shaping techniques for deep tissue Raman spectroscopy

Light scattering limits the penetration depth of non-invasive Raman spectroscopy in biological media. While safe levels of irradiation may be adequate to analyze superficial tissue, scattering of the  pump beam reduces the Raman signal to undetectable levels deeper within the tissue. As multiple light scattering is a complex but ultimately deterministic phenomenon, wavefront shaping techniques can be used to manipulate the scattered light even deep inside a random medium. This suggests the possibility to enhance the effective penetration depth of Raman spectroscopy by controlling the incident wavefront of the pump light. I will discuss advantages and disadvantages of this approach, and how wavefront shaping can be effectively used to increase the penetration depth of the pump light.

Short Bio

Prof Jacopo Bertolotti is an expert in light scattering and imaging in turbid media. He got his degree and PhD in Physics at the University of Florence (IT) in 2004 and 2008 respectively, and then worked at the University of Twente (NL) and the Institut Langevin (FR) until 2013, when he moved to the University of Exeter (UK).