Introduction in optical diagnosis and imaging in scattering tissues: theoretical foundation, methods and applications.

Skin and other biological tissues scatter light, making it impossible to look directly inside the body. Still, there are many optical methods that can image structures deep under the skin e. g. by cleverly using interactions between light and tissue, by exploiting the properties of light propagation in scattering materials, or by combining light with ultrasound. In this course, you will get to know the basic theoretical models for light propagation in biological tissue, and you will learn the working principle of a large range of optical imaging methods, ranging from highly experimental approaches to devices widely used in the clinic on a daily basis. Topics include: light scattering on small particles, light diffusion and radiative transport, optical coherence tomography, photoacoustic tomography, speckle-based blood flow monitoring, optical wavefront shaping, and more. In addition to the lectures, you will perform a series of four light-scattering experiments. For these experiments, you need only four time slots out of the slots mentioned in the schedule. At the beginning of the course you can schedule these practicum sessions in order to prevent overlap with other courses.

Written examination (weight factor 0.5). Reports on experiments (weight factor 0.5).
Threshold: a minimum grade of 5.5 is required for both parts (the written examination and the experiment report). If this threshold is not reached, the lowest of the two grades is counted.