Boston Chapter of the IEEE Photonics Society

Abstract:  Abstract: Optical coherence tomography (OCT) resolves light scattering across depth to image biological tissue microanatomy with resolution < 10μm. Polarization-sensitive optical coherence tomography (PS-OCT) combines the structural imaging of conventional OCT with the ability to map birefringence, diattenuation, and polarization-dependent scattering. For biological tissues, this capability can potentially add compositional information to images of anatomy without requiring exogenous contrast agents. However, high noise levels in fiber-based PS-OCT have broadly limited its clinical utility. Following an introduction of PS-OCT, this talk will discuss our recent efforts towards a high-performance PS-OCT system and demonstrate two promising clinical applications of PS-OCT: retinal imaging in ophthalmology and coronary plaque characterization in interventional cardiology.

Recommended reading before the seminar: http://www.zmpbmt.meduniwien.ac.at/index.php?id=329

Biography:  Ellen Ziyi Zhang received her B.E. and Ph.D. degree from Huazhong University of Science and Technology in China and University of Ottawa in Canada, respectively. Her Ph.D. research focused on fiber optic sensing instrumentation. Ellen is currently an instructor at Wellman Center for Photomedicine, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. She is developing new approaches in polarization-sensitive optical coherence tomography for applications in ophthalmology, intravascular imaging, and endoscopy.

Location:  MIT Lincoln Laboratory