Preparation of a skin equivalent phantom with interior micron-scale vessel structures for optical imaging experiments

Chen Chen; Florian Klämpfl; Christian Knipfer; Max Riemann; Rajesh Kanawade; Florian Stelzle; Michael Schmidt

doi:10.1364/BOE.5.003140

Preparation of a skin equivalent phantom with interior micron-scale vessel structures for optical imaging experiments

Biomed Opt Express. 2014 Aug 22;5(9):3140-9. doi: 10.1364/BOE.5.003140. eCollection 2014 Sep 1.

Authors

Chen Chen¹, Florian Klämpfl², Christian Knipfer³, Max Riemann³, Rajesh Kanawade¹, Florian Stelzle³, Michael Schmidt¹

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Photonic Technologies, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, 91052 Erlangen, Germany ; Erlangen Graduate School in Advanced Optical Technologies, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, 91052 Erlangen, Germany.
² Institute of Photonic Technologies, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, 91052 Erlangen, Germany.
³ Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, 91054 Erlangen, Germany.

Abstract

A popular alternative of preparing multilayer or microfluidic chip based phantoms could have helped to simulate the subsurface vascular network, but brought inevitable problems. In this work, we describe the preparation method of a single layer skin equivalent tissue phantom containing interior vessel channels, which mimick the superficial microvascular structure. The fabrication method does not disturb the optical properties of the turbiding matrix material. The diameter of the channels reaches a value of 50 μm. The size, as well as the geometry of the generated vessel structures are investigated by using the SD-OCT system. Our preliminary results confirm that fabrication of such a phantom is achievable and reproducible. Prospectively, this phantom is used to calibrate the optical angiographic imaging approaches.

Keywords: (110.7050) Turbid media; (160.4760) Optical properties; (170.0170) Medical optics and biotechnology; (170.3880) Medical and biological imaging; (350.0350) Other areas of optics.