Systems and methods are provided for identifying a suitable surgical location and/or trajectory for proceeding with a surgical procedure based on local polarization-sensitive optical coherence tomography imaging (PS-OCT). PS-OCT images are obtained of a tissue region and are processed to provide a spatial map of anisotropic structure within the tissue region. The anisotropic structure is processed to determine one or more suitable surgical locations and/or trajectories for avoiding or reducing damage to local anisotropic tissue structure identified within the tissue region. The spatial map of the anisotropic structure is registered with pre-operative volumetric image data identifying anisotropic tissue structure within a second tissue region that is larger than the tissue region imaged by PS-OCT.

An integrated optical system includes a wavelength tunable optical source and a photonic integrated circuit (PIC). The PIC includes a set of spatial waveguide switches having an input optically coupled to the wavelength tunable optical source and a plurality of outputs. The PIC also includes an optical emitter having a plurality of inputs, each being coupled to a respective one of the plurality of outputs of the set of spatial waveguide switches, the optical emitter configured to produce at an output an optical beam having a wavelength dependent emission direction that changes as light is switched by the set of spatial waveguide switches such that the optical beam may be steered in two dimensions.

Arrangements and methods are provided for obtaining information associated with an anatomical sample. For example, at least one first electro-magnetic radiation can be provided to the anatomical sample so as to generate at least one acoustic wave in the anatomical sample. At least one second electro-magnetic radiation can be produced based on the acoustic wave. At least one portion of at least one second electro-magnetic radiation can be provided so as to determine information associated with at least one portion of the anatomical sample. In addition, the information based on data associated with the second electro-magnetic radiation can be analyzed. The first electro-magnetic radiation may include at least one first magnitude and at least one first frequency. The second electro-magnetic radiation can include at least one second magnitude and at least one second frequency. The data may relate to a first difference between the first and second magnitudes and/or a second difference between the first and second frequencies. The second difference may be approximately between −100 GHz and 100 GHz, excluding zero.

A method of assessing tissue health comprises the steps of obtaining depth-resolved spectra of a selected area of in vivo tissue, and assessing the health of the selected area based on the depth-resolved structural information of the scatterers. Obtaining depth-resolved spectra of the selected area comprises directing a sample beam towards the selected area at an angle, and receiving an angle-resolved scattered sample beam. The angle-resolved scattered sample beam is cross-correlated with the reference beam to produce an angle-resolved cross-correlated signal about the selected area, which is spectrally dispersed to yield an angle-resolved, spectrally-resolved cross-correlation profile having depth-resolved information about the selected area. The angle-resolved, spectrally-resolved cross-correlation profile is processed to obtain depth-resolved information about scatterers in the selected area.

An optical sensor is provided. The optical sensor has an emitting system including at least one light emitting device which emits light onto an object; and a detecting system detecting the light which has been emitted by the emitting system and which has propagated through the object. The light emitting device is capable of emitting a plurality of light beams with different wavelengths onto substantially the same position of the object.

Apparatus and methods for forming an image of an object which involves focusing partially to fully spatially-coherent radiation onto a sample and collecting the resulting scattered radiation (the “standard data set”) on an array detector. In addition to the standard dataset, an additional measurement or plurality of measurements is made of a relatively-unscattered beam, using the array detector, which comprises the “modulus enforced probe (MEP) dataset”. This MEP dataset serves as an extra constraint, called the MEP constraint, in the phase retrieval algorithm used to reconstruct the image of the object.

A apparatus for obtaining an individualized unit spectrum includes: a spectrum obtainer configured to obtain a first biological spectrum from a subject at a first measurement time, and obtain a second biological spectrum from the subject at a second measurement time; and a processor configured to extract the individualized unit spectrum from the first biological spectrum and the second biological spectrum, based on a predetermined unit spectrum of a target component.

A super resolution technique, intended mainly for fluorescence microscopy, acquires the three-dimensional position of an emitter, through a hybrid method, including a number of steps. In a first step the two-dimensional position of an emitter is acquired, using a technique, named in this application as an Abbe's loophole technique. In this technique a doughnut, or a combination of distributions, having a zero intensity at the combined center of the distributions, is projected onto the sample containing the emitter, under conditions wherein the doughnut null is moved towards the emitter to reach a position in which the emitter does not emit light. In a second step, an axial measurement is obtained using a 3D shaping method, characterized by the fact that the emitted light is shaped by an additional optical module creating a shape of the light emitted by the emitter, this shape being dependent of the axial position and means to retrieve the axial position from the shape.

An image display method includes the following operations (a) to (e). The (a) is of obtaining a plurality of two-dimensional images by two-dimensionally imaging a specimen, in which a plurality of objects to be observed are present three-dimensionally in the specimen, at a plurality of mutually different focus positions. The (b) is of obtaining image data representing a three-dimensional shape of the specimen. The (c) is of obtaining a three-dimensional image of the specimen based on the image data. The (d) is of obtaining the two-dimensional image selected from the plurality of two-dimensional images or a two-dimensional image generated to be focused on the plurality of objects based on the plurality of two-dimensional images as an integration two-dimensional image. The (e) is of integrating the integration two-dimensional image obtained in the (d) with the three-dimensional image obtained in the (c) and displaying an integrated image on a display unit.

An optical beam controller includes: an optical multiple-beam generator generating a plurality of wavelength-swept optical beams; and an optical frequency difference setter setting an optical frequency difference in any combination of the plurality of optical beams in such a way as to be larger than a band of a photodetector that receives an optical beam.