Computational time-of-flight diffuse optical tomography

TL;DR

This paper introduces a fast, contactless imaging method using a single-photon time-of-flight camera to visualize objects deep inside diffusive media like human tissue, enabling real-time biomedical imaging.

Contribution

It presents a novel computational approach combining temporal photon data with a single-photon camera to achieve deep, fast, and contactless imaging through highly diffusive media.

Findings

Imaging depth exceeds 80 transport mean free paths.

Achieves one-second acquisition enabling Hz frame rate.

Demonstrated deep-body imaging in biological tissue.

Abstract

Imaging through a strongly diffusive medium remains an outstanding challenge in particular in association with applications in biological and medical imaging. Here we propose a method based on a single-photon time-of-flight camera that allows, in combination with computational processing of the spatial and full temporal photon distribution data, to image an object embedded inside a strongly diffusive medium over more than 80 transport mean free paths. The technique is contactless and requires one second acquisition times thus allowing Hz frame rate imaging. The imaging depth corresponds to several cm of human tissue and allows one to perform deep-body imaging, here demonstrated as a proof-of-principle.