Patent ID: 9584771
Date: 2017-02-28
CPC Classifications: A61B,G01N,H04N

Claim:
1. A method of performing thermophotonic imaging, said method comprising the steps of: providing a sample; providing an optical source having a wavelength selected to generate photothermal radiation within said sample; providing an imaging camera with an optical bandwidth selected for detection of said photothermal radiation; generating a reference waveform comprising a plurality of modulation cycles, wherein said reference waveform comprises multiple frequency components; producing a modulated optical beam by modulating an intensity of an optical beam emitted by said optical source according to said reference waveform; illuminating said sample with said modulated optical beam; imaging said photothermal radiation with said imaging camera; recording a plurality of averaged image frames at time offsets corresponding to different values of said reference waveform; and processing said averaged image frames and said reference waveform to obtain an image relating to said photothermal radiation, wherein said image is a cross-correlation image obtained by calculating a complex cross-correlation of said reference waveform and each pixel of said averaged image frames, thereby obtaining a complex cross-correlation signal for each pixel, and processing the complex cross-correlation signals to obtain the cross-correlation image; wherein said cross-correlation image is one of: