Freeze-thaw hysteresis effects in terahertz imaging of biomedical tissues

Biomed Opt Express. 2016 Oct 26;7(11):4711-4717. doi: 10.1364/BOE.7.004711. eCollection 2016 Nov 1.

Abstract

There have recently been several studies published involving terahertz (THz) imaging of frozen biomedical samples. In this paper, we investigate the effects of the freeze-thaw cycle on THz properties of porcine muscle and fat samples. For ordinary freezing, there was a significant change in the THz properties after thawing for muscle tissue but not for fat tissue. However, if snap-freezing was combined with fast-thawing instead of ordinary freezing and ordinary thawing, then the freeze-thaw hysteresis was removed.

Keywords: (170.3880) Medical and biological imaging; (170.6795) Terahertz imaging; (300.6495) Spectroscopy, terahertz.