Measurement of the optical properties of a two-layer model of the human head using broadband near-infrared spectroscopy

We present the development of a continuous-wave method of quantifying the optical properties of a two-layered model of the human head using a broadband spectral approach. Absolute absorption and scattering properties of the upper and lower layers of phantoms with known optical properties were reconstructed from steady-state multi-distance measurements by performing differential fit analysis of the near-infrared reflectance spectrum between 700 and 1000 nm. From spectra acquired at 10, 20, and 30 mm, the concentration of a chromophore in the bottom layer was determined within an error of 10% in the presence of a 15 mm thick top layer. These results demonstrate that our method was able to determine the optical properties of the lower layer, which represents brain, with acceptable error at specific source-detector distances.     

Determination of the optical properties of a two-layer tissue model by detecting photons migrating at progressively increasing depths

We have investigated a method for solving the inverse problem of determining the optical properties of a two-layer turbid model. The method is based on deducing the optical properties (OPs) of the top layer from the absolute spatially resolved reflectance that results from photon migration within only the top layer by use of a multivariate calibration model. Then the OPs of the bottom layer are deduced from relative frequency-domain (FD) reflectance measurements by use of the two-layer FD diffusion model. The method was validated with Monte Carlo FD reflectance profiles and experimental measurements of two-layer phantoms. The results showed that the method is useful for two-layer models with interface depths of >5 mm; the OPs were estimated, within a relatively short time (<1 min), with a mean error of <10% for the Monte Carlo reflectance profiles and with errors of <25% for the phantom measurements.     

Sequential estimation of optical properties of a two-layered epithelial tissue model from depth-resolved ultraviolet-visible diffuse reflectance spectra

A method for estimating the optical properties of two-layered media (such as squamous epithelial tissue) over a range of wavelengths in the ultraviolet-visible spectrum is proposed and tested with Monte Carlo modeling. The method first used a fiber-optic probe with angled illumination and the collection fibers placed at a small separation (or=1000 microm) was used to detect diffuse reflectance preferentially from the bottom layer. A second Monte Carlo-based inverse model for a two-layered medium was applied to estimate the bottom layer optical properties, as well as the top layer thickness, given that the top layer optical properties have been estimated. The results of Monte Carlo validation show that this method works well for an epithelial tissue model with a top layer thickness ranging from 200 to 500 microm. For most thicknesses within this range, the absorption coefficients were estimated to within 15% of the true values, the reduced scattering coefficients were estimated to within 20% and the top layer thicknesses were estimated to within 20%. The application of a variance reduction technique to the Monte Carlo modeling proved to be effective in improving the accuracy with which the optical properties are estimated.     

Quantifying the properties of two-layer turbid media with frequency-domain diffuse reflectance

Noncontact, frequency-domain measurements of diffusely reflected light are used to quantify optical properties of two-layer tissuelike turbid media. The irradiating source is a sinusoidal intensity-modulated plane wave, with modulation frequencies ranging from 10 to 1500 MHz. Frequency-dependent phase and amplitude of diffusely reflected photon density waves are simultaneously fitted to a diffusion-based two-layer model to quantify absorption (mu(a)) and reduced scattering (mu(s)') parameters of each layer as well as the upper-layer thickness (l). Study results indicate that the optical properties of two-layer media can be determined with a percent accuracy of the order of +/-9% and +/-5% for mu(a) and mu(s)', respectively. The accuracy of upper-layer thickness (l) estimation is as good as +/-6% when optical properties of upper and lower layers are known. Optical property and layer thickness prediction accuracy degrade significantly when more than three free parameters are extracted from data fits. Problems with convergence are encountered when all five free parameters (mu(a) and mu(s)' of upper and lower layers and thickness l) must be deduced.     

Ag/SiO_2/Ag组成的三角形纳米柱的光学及传感特性

研究了一种Ag/SiO2/Ag组成的三角形纳米柱的LSPR消光光谱特性及其传感特性.时域有限差分（FDTD）法计算结果表明,三棱柱结构在中间夹层SiO2后,消光光谱峰值出现红移现象,并伴随着折射率灵敏度的增加.随着中间介质层厚度的增加,上下两层金属间表面等离子体耦合逐渐减弱,消光光谱峰值红移速度减慢.当介质层厚度为60nm时,金属层间的表面等离子体耦合消失,消光光谱与折射率灵敏度不再发生变化.对于实际制作时可能出现尖角钝化的三棱柱结构,中间介质层仍然表现出对其光学及传感特性的良好的调节作用.     

Skin color correction for tissue spectroscopy: demonstration of a novel approach with tissue-mimicking phantoms

The application of partial least squares (PLS) regression to visible-near-infrared (VIS-NIR) spectroscopy for modeling important blood and tissue parameters is generally complicated by the variation in skin pigmentation (melanin) across the human population. An orthogonal correction method for removing the influence of skin pigmentation has been demonstrated in diffuse reflectance spectra from two-layer tissue-mimicking phantoms. The absorption properties of the phantoms were defined by lyophilized human hemoglobin (bottom layer) and synthetic melanin (top layer). Tissue-like scattering was simulated in both layers with intralipid. The approach uses principal components analysis (PCA) loading vectors from a separate set of phantom spectra that encode the unwanted melanin variation to remove the effect of melanin from the test phantoms. The preprocessing of phantom spectra using this orthogonal correction method resulted in PLS models with reduced complexity and enhanced prediction performance. Preliminary results from a separate study that evaluates the feasibility of defining skin color variation in an experiment with a single human subject are also presented.     

Dual layer matching (20 MHz) piezoelectric transducers with glassand parylene

This study describes a method of applying very thin broadband matching layers to 2 mm diameter 20 MHz transducers. Dual layer acoustic matching between the ceramic and the medium at the front face of the transducer was accomplished by selecting 1/4 wavelength glass layers from a commercial source, epoxying them to the ceramic, and vapor depositing parylene to 1/4 wavelength thickness on the glass. A 8 dB fractional bandwidth of 0.75 and insertion loss of -10 dB was found on the average for these transducers. This method allowed fabricating probes that performed well, were reproducible, provided both a matching and protection coating, and could be fabricated in a practical manner     

Quality enhancement of AZO thin films at various thicknesses by introducing ITO buffer layer

Due to the simultaneously superior optical transmittance and low electrical resistivity, transparent conductive electrodes play a significant role in semiconductor electronics. To enhance the electrical properties of these films, one approach is thickness increment which degrades the optical properties. However, a preferred way to optimize both electrical and optical properties of these layers is to introduce a buffer layer. In this work, the effects of buffer layer and film thickness on the structural, electrical, optical and morphological properties of AZO thin films are investigated. Al-doped zinc oxide (AZO) is prepared at various thicknesses of 100 to 300 nm on the bare and 100 nm-thick indium tin oxide (ITO) coated glass substrates by radio frequency sputtering. Results demonstrate that by introducing ITO as a buffer layer, the average values of sheet resistance and strain within the film are decreased (about 76 and 3.3 times lower than films deposited on bare glasses), respectively. Furthermore, the average transmittance of ITO/AZO bilayer is improved nearly 10% regarding single AZO thin film. This indicates that bilayer thin films show better physical properties rather than conventional monolayer thin films. As the AZO film thickness increases, the interplanar spacing, d₍₀₀₂₎, strain within the film and compressive stress of the film in the hexagonal lattice, decreases indicating the higher yield of AZO crystal. Moreover, with the growth in film thickness, carrier concentration and optical band gap (E_g) of AZO film are increased from 4.62?×?10¹⁹ to 8.21?×?10¹⁹ cm^?3 and from 3.55 to 3.62 eV, respectively due to the Burstein-Moss (BM) effect. The refractive index of AZO thin film is obtained in the range of 2.24–2.26. With the presence of ITO buffer layer, the AZO thin film exhibits a resistivity as low as 6?×?10^?4 Ω cm, a sheet resistance of 15 Ω/sq and a high figure of merit (FOM) of 1.19?×?10⁴ (Ω cm)^?1 at a film thickness of 300 nm. As a result, the quality of AZO thin films deposited on ITO buffer layer is found to be superior regarding those grown on a bare glass substrate. This study has been performed over these two substrates because of their significant usage in the organic light emitting diodes and photovoltaic applications as an enhanced carrier injecting electrodes.     

Thickness effects in microlayer composites of polycarbonate and poly(styrene-acrylonitrile)

Coextruded microlayer sheet consisting of alternating layers of polycarbonate (PC) and styrene-acrylonitrile copolymer (SAN) exhibits improved properties such as toughness and ductility as the number of layers is increased. In this study, the composition was kept essentially constant, as was the sheet thickness at 1.2 mm, and the layer thickness was changed by varying the total number of layers from 49 to 776. All the compositions exhibited macroscopic yielding in uniaxial tension but the fracture strain, which represents neck propagation, increased with the number of layers. The increased ductility was attributed to a transition in the microdeformation behaviour observed when microspecimens were stretched in the optical microscope. When the layers were thicker, individual layers exhibited behaviour characteristic of the bulk, that is SAN crazed or cracked while shear bands initiated in PC from the craze tips. As the layer thickness decreased, crazing or cracking of the SAN was suppressed and shear bands that extended through several layers produced shear yielding of both PC and SAN. Calculations showed that when the layer thickness is sufficiently small, impingement of a PC shear band on the interface creates a local shear stress concentration. As a result the shear band continues to grow through the SAN layer and subsequently, at the point of instability, shear yielding can occur in both PC and SAN layers.     

浮法玻璃表面光学常数分析

本文通过光谱椭偏仪测量浮法玻璃空气面和锡面的偏振信息,利用Cauchy光学模型分析得到浮法玻璃两表面的布鲁斯特角和光学常数,分析结果表明浮法玻璃空气面、锡面、理想玻璃界面的布鲁斯特角分别为56.7°、57°和56.8°,空气面形成疏松的表面层,厚度为2.75nm,折射率小于玻璃本底,锡面形成锡扩散表面层,厚度为81.29nm,折射率大于玻璃本底折射率,并且随厚度呈现出非线性梯度变化,结合透光率数据分析得到玻璃消光系数在10-6量级。由于浮法玻璃空气面和锡面的折射率明显不同,需要在后续玻璃镀膜光学设计时区别对待。     

Scaling method for fast Monte Carlo simulation of diffuse reflectance spectra from multilayered turbid media

A scaling Monte Carlo method has been developed to calculate diffuse reflectance from multilayered media with a wide range of optical properties in the ultraviolet-visible wavelength range. This multilayered scaling method employs the photon trajectory information generated from a single baseline Monte Carlo simulation of a homogeneous medium to scale the exit distance and exit weight of photons for a new set of optical properties in the multilayered medium. The scaling method is particularly suited to simulating diffuse reflectance spectra or creating a Monte Carlo database to extract optical properties of layered media, both of which are demonstrated in this paper. Particularly, it was found that the root-mean-square error (RMSE) between scaled diffuse reflectance, for which the anisotropy factor and refractive index in the baseline simulation were, respectively, 0.9 and 1.338, and independently simulated diffuse reflectance was less than or equal to 5% for source-detector separations from 200 to 1500 microm when the anisotropy factor of the top layer in a two-layered epithelial tissue model was varied from 0.8 to 0.99; in contrast, the RMSE was always less than 5% for all separations (from 0 to 1500 microm) when the anisotropy factor of the bottom layer was varied from 0.7 to 0.99. When the refractive index of either layer in the two-layered tissue model was varied from 1.3 to 1.4, the RMSE was less than 10%. The scaling method can reduce computation time by more than 2 orders of magnitude compared with independent Monte Carlo simulations.     

Multilayer structure of tantalum anodic oxide films formed in dilute phosphoric acid

An investigation has been made of the multilayer structure of anodic oxide films on pure tantalum, formed up to various voltages with a constant current density of 1.0 mA cm^-2 in 1.0 × 10^-2 N H₃PO₄ at 20°C. For the study, infrared reflectance spectra (IRRS) were recorded and the optical thickness measuring method was successfully applied using the wavelengths of optical interference maxima and a chemical film stripper (concentrated ammonium hydrogen difluoride aqueous solution).The conclusions are that: (1) tantalum anodic oxide films anodized in dilute phosphoric acid consist of three layers, irrespective of the formation voltage; (2) the innermost layer is uniform whatever the anodization voltage; (3) phosphate anions are incorporated in both the outermost and middle layers but not in the innermost layer; (4) all three layers grow from the initial formation stage and the growth rates are nearly equal; (5) for formation voltages below 100 V the middle layer has an unchanging chemical structure, but above 100 V its chemical structure changes with the voltage; (6) the outermost layer appears to vary in chemical structure over all anodization voltages.     

Reliable deposition of induced transmission filters with a single metal layer

The sensitivity of an induced transmission filter (ITF) design to deposition errors is analyzed for the case of a single metal layer ITF. Theoretical knowledge of the least and most sensitive layers within the ITF design improves deposition reliability when using broadband optical monitoring of only the dielectric part of such metal-dielectric filters. Linearly variable ITFs have been successfully fabricated using this developed approach for error compensation.     

不同电磁特性吸收剂的多层宽带吸波材料设计

简单有效的材料设计方法是最大程度发挥吸收剂吸波性能的关键.本研究提出了一种将匹配频率分别位于高、中、低频的三种高性能磁性吸波材料进行梯度叠层的设计方法.研究结果表明:利用此设计原理对球形羰基铁粉、片状羰基铁粉和片状FeSiAl合金三种吸收剂进行精确的阻抗渐变设计,充分发挥它们分别对高、中、低频电磁波的高效吸收,从而有效...     

Effects of buffer layer thickness on properties of ZnO thin films grown on porous silicon by plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy

ZnO thin films with different buffer layer thicknesses were grown on Si and porous silicon (PS) by plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy (PA-MBE). The effects of PS and buffer layer thickness on the structural and optical properties of ZnO thin films were investigated by atomic force microscopy (AFM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and photoluminescence (PL). The ZnO buffer layers, the intensity of the (002) diffraction peak for the ZnO thin films and its full width at half maximum (FWHM) decreased with an increase in the thickness of the ZnO buffer layers, indicating an improvement in the crystal quality of the films. On introducing PS as a substrate, the grain sizes of the ZnO thin films became larger and their residual stress could be relaxed compared with the ZnO thin films grown on Si. The intensity ratio of the ultraviolet (UV) to visible emission peak in the PL spectra of the ZnO thin films increased with an increase in buffer layer thickness. Stronger and narrower UV emission peaks were observed for ZnO thin films grown on PS. Their structural and optical properties were enhanced by increasing the buffer layer thickness. In addition, introduction of PS as a substrate enhanced the structural and optical properties of the ZnO thin films and also suppressed Fabry-Perot interference.     

玻璃基掩埋式光波导堆栈的制作与表征

在硅酸盐光学玻璃基片上制作了光波导堆栈, 这种光波导堆栈通过Ag⁺/Na⁺熔盐离子交换和电场辅助离子扩散技术顺次制作了两层掩埋式光波导. 对光波导堆栈的横截面显微结构进行了观察, 并对堆栈中两层波导的损耗特性进行了测试. 所获得的光波导堆栈中的上、下两层波导芯部分别位于玻璃表面以下14和35 μm处; 上层光波导芯部尺寸约为12 μm×7 μm; 下层光波导芯部尺寸约为9 μm×8 μm. 通光测试显示两层波导在1.55 μm工作波长下均为单模光波导, 且两者之间没有相互耦合. 损耗测试分析结果显示: 堆栈中两层光波导的传输损耗均约为0.12 dB/cm,与单模光纤之间的耦合损耗分别为0.78和0.73 dB. 分析表明, 这种光波导堆栈在玻璃基集成光芯片的高密度集成方面具有很好的应用前景.     

Index determination of opaque and semitransparent metallic films: application to light absorbers

Index-determination methods based on reflectance and transmittance measurements are developed for both opaque and semitransparent metallic films. Results are given concerning chromium and nickel layers manufactured by electron-beam deposition. To take account of the evolution of the optical constants versus layer thickness, an inhomogeneous layer model is used, which permits us to obtain a good agreement between measurements and calculations. Results are applied to the design and manufacture of light absorbers for which accurate index knowledge is required. Measured absorption is higher than 0.999 on both broadband and monochromatic components.     

Spacing of Fractures in a Multilayer at Fracture Saturation

Using a three-layer model with a fractured central layer, and with a top layer and a bottom layer of the same thickness, we study the change of the critical fracture spacing to layer thickness ratio (i.e., the ratio at fracture saturation) as a function of the thickness of the top and bottom layers. Results show that, with increasing thickness of these layers, the critical spacing to layer thickness ratio decreases rapidly from infinity to a constant value, corresponding to that for very thick top and bottom layers. Also, we study the change of the critical spacing ratio as a function of the thickness of the top layer where the bottom layer is much thicker (5 times) than the fractured layer. In this case, the critical spacing to layer thickness ratio decreases rapidly from the value for edge fractures to the same constant value as the thickness of the top layer increases. These results imply that if the adjacent layers are thicker than 1.5 times the thickness of the fractured layer, the multilayer can be treated approximately as a system with infinitely thick top and bottom layers in terms of spacing at fracture saturation.     

Monte Carlo-based inverse model for calculating tissue optical properties. Part I: Theory and validation on synthetic phantoms

A flexible and fast Monte Carlo-based model of diffuse reflectance has been developed for the extraction of the absorption and scattering properties of turbid media, such as human tissues. This method is valid for a wide range of optical properties and is easily adaptable to existing probe geometries, provided a single phantom calibration measurement is made. A condensed Monte Carlo method was used to speed up the forward simulations. This model was validated by use of two sets of liquid-tissue phantoms containing Nigrosin or hemoglobin as absorbers and polystyrene spheres as scatterers. The phantoms had a wide range of absorption (0-20 cm(-1)) and reduced scattering coefficients (7-33 cm(-1)). Mie theory and a spectrophotometer were used to determine the absorption and reduced scattering coefficients of the phantoms. The diffuse reflectance spectra of the phantoms were measured over a wavelength range of 350-850 nm. It was found that optical properties could be extracted from the experimentally measured diffuse reflectance spectra with an average error of 3% or less for phantoms containing hemoglobin and 12% or less for phantoms containing Nigrosin.     

Sputter deposition of silicon oxynitride gradient and multilayer coatings

The optical properties of silicon oxynitride films deposited by reactive dc magnetron sputtered films have been investigated. In particular the absorption characteristics of silicon nitride thin films in the visible spectrum and their optical bandgap were analyzed with regard to their composition and deposition properties. It can be shown that there is a significant difference between the absorption in the visible spectrum and the optical bandgap for these layers. The influence of unipolar and bipolar pulse modes on the optical layer properties is presented. The extinction coefficient for silicon nitride single layers could be reduced to a value of 2 x 10(-4) at 500 nm without external heating. There is also the dependence of the absorption of silicon oxynitride layers on the discharge voltage. We present the resulting spectra of rugate and edge filters that consist of these layers and offer lower absorption than single layers.