Biophotonics Concepts to Applications

This book introduces senior-level and postgraduate students to the principles and applications of biophotonics. It also serves as a valuable reference resource or as a short-course textbook for practicing physicians, clinicians, biomedical researchers, healthcare professionals, and biomedical engineers and technicians dealing with the design, development, and application of photonics components and instrumentation to biophotonics issues. The topics include the fundamentals of optics and photonics, the optical properties of biological tissues, light-tissue interactions, microscopy for visualizing tissue components, spectroscopy for optically analyzing the properties of tissue, and optical biomedical imaging. It also describes tools and techniques such as laser and LED optical sources, photodetectors, optical fibers, bioluminescent probes for labeling cells, optical-based biosensors, surface plasmon resonance, and lab-on-a-chip technologies. Among the applications are optical coherence tomography (OCT), optical imaging modalities, photodynamic therapy (PDT), photobiostimulation or low-level light therapy (LLLT), diverse microscopic and spectroscopic techniques, tissue characterization, laser tissue ablation, optical trapping, and optogenetics. Worked examples further explain the material and how it can be applied to practical designs, and the homework problems help test readers’ understanding of the text.

After obtaining his doctorate in physics from Northeastern University, Dr. Gerd Keiser worked in the telecommunications industry at Honeywell, GTE, General Dynamics, and PhotonicsComm Solutions, where his work involved research and application of optical networking technology and digital switch implementations for telecom systems. While he was at GTE, he was the recipient of the prestigious Leslie Warner Award from GTE for ATM switch development. During this time he also was an Adjunct Professor of electrical engineering at Northeastern University, Tufts University, and Boston University. Since 2007, he has been with the National Taiwan University of Science and Technology in Taipei, Taiwan. He is a Fellow of the IEEE, a member of OSA and SPIE, and an Associate Editor of the journal Optical Fiber Technology. He has given numerous invited talks, papers, short courses, and keynote speeches at international conferences. In addition, he is the author of four graduate-level books: Optical Fiber Communications, Local Area Networks, Optical Communication Essentials, and FTTX Concepts and Applications. His professional experience and research interests are in the general areas of optical networking technology and biophotonics.