Multi-Distance Frequency-Domain Optical Measurements of Coherent Cerebral Hemodynamics

We report non-invasive, bilateral optical measurements on the forehead of five healthy human subjects, of 0.1 Hz oscillatory hemodynamics elicited either by cyclic inflation of pneumatic thigh cuffs, or by paced breathing. Optical intensity and the phase of photon-density waves were collected with frequency-domain near-infrared spectroscopy at seven source-detector distances (11–40 mm). Coherent hemodynamic oscillations are represented by phasors of oxyhemoglobin (O) and deoxyhemoglobin (D) concentrations, and by the vector D/O that represents the amplitude ratio and phase difference of D and O. We found that, on an average, the amplitude ratio (|D/O|) and the phase difference (∠(D/O)) obtained with single-distance intensity at 11–40 mm increase from 0.1° and −330° to 0.2° and −200°, respectively. Single-distance phase and the intensity slope featured a weaker dependence on source-detector separation, and yielded |D/O| and ∠(D/O) values of about 0.5 and −200°, respectively, at distances greater than 20 mm. The key findings are: (1) Single-distance phase and intensity slope are sensitive to deeper tissue compared to single-distance intensity; (2) deeper tissue hemodynamic oscillations, which more closely represent the brain, feature D and O phasors that are consistent with a greater relative flow-to-volume contributions in brain tissue compared to extracerebral, superficial tissue.

Cloaking through cancellation of diffusive wave scattering

A new cloaking mechanism, which makes enclosed objects invisible to diffusive photon density waves, is proposed. First, diffusive scattering from a basic core–shell geometry, which represents the cloaked structure, is studied. The conditions of scattering cancellation in a quasi-static scattering regime are derived. These allow for tailoring the diffusivity constant of the shell enclosing the object so that the fields scattered from the shell and the object cancel each other. This means that the photon flow outside the cloak behaves as if the cloaked object were not present. Diffusive light invisibility may have potential applications in hiding hot spots in infrared thermography or tissue imaging.