Wydarzenia

Seminarium Instytutu Niskich Temperatur i Badań Strukturalnych PAN

Terahertz Time-Domain Spectroscopy Imaging Studies of Biomaterials

prof. Roman Sobolewski

Uniwersytet Rochester

Terahertz (THz) radiation is situated between the infrared and microwave regions in the electromagnetic spectrum with a bandwidth ranging from 0.3 to 30 THz and has numerous interesting applications in various fields, ranging from security screening, e.g., at airports, through ultrafast communications and radioastronomy, to nonionizing biomedical spectroscopy and imaging. One of the most interesting forms of THz radiation are subpicosecond in duration bursts of electromagnetic (EM) waves. These EM bursts are called THz transients, since they are typically characterized by approx. a 0.1 to 5 THz spectral range. We present our THz time-domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS) technique that has been utilized to study a variety of biomaterials ranging from gelatin-based hydrogels mimicking human skin tissue to formalin-fixed-paraffin-embedded murine pancreas and liver tumors. Our experimentally measured time-domain transients were, subsequently, analyzed using, developed by us, a maximum a-posteriori probability estimation technique to generate high-resolution, 2-dimensional maps of THz-range refractive index n and absorption coefficient a parameters, as imaging markers [1]. We also present precisely distinguishable differences in n and a markers between images of radiation-treated and unirradiated tumor samples. Once medically accepted, the THz-TDS imaging could augment ex-vivo histopathology tumor diagnostics and be widely used in Tissue Biobanks at cancer institutions.

[1] Chakraborty D., Mills B. N., Cheng J., Komissarov I., Gerber S. A., and Sobolewski R., (2023) ACS Omega 8, 9925−9933.

Roman Sobolewski is a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Physics, and Materials Science, as well as a Senior Scientist of Laser Energetics at the University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, USA. He received his PhD and DSc (Habilitation) degrees in Physics from the Polish Academy of Sciences, in 1983 and 1992, respectively. In 2006, he was granted the State Professorship of the Republic of Poland. In 2011, he received the Spanish Government Research Scholarship and spent a semester at University of Salamanca, Spain. In 2015, he was named a Distinguished Fellow of the Kosciuszko Foundation Collegium of Eminent Scientists of Polish Origin and Ancestry. Dr. Sobolewski is the OPTICA (former OSA) Travelling Lecturer, as well as the European Union ERASMUS+ Lecturer. His research interests are focused on ultrafast phenomena in condensed matter, novel nanostructured spintronics materials and devices, single-photon detection and quantum communications, and on generation and detection of THz radiation transients and THz time-resolved spectroscopy. He has published over 430 peer-reviewed publications and presented over 200 invited lectures, and colloquia worldwide.