Engineering of core/shell nanoparticles surface plasmon for increasing of light penetration depth in tissue (modeling and analysis)

Objectives: In this article, a new procedure for increasing the light penetration depth in a tissue is studied and simulated. It has been reported that the most important problem in biomedical optical imaging relates to the light penetration depth, and so this makes a dramatic restriction on its applications. In the optical imaging method, the detection of the backscattered photons from a deep tumor is rarely done or is done with a low efficiency; it is because of the high absorption and scattering losses. Methods: Unlike the common methods (using a high energy laser for deep penetration) by engineering the nanoparticles’ optical properties such as their anisotropy, absorption, and scattering efficiency, which are distributed into a tissue, the detected photons amplitude can be manipulated. In other words, by engineering the nanoparticle plasmon properties and their effect on the dye molecules’ quantum yield, fluorescence emission and more importantly influence on the scattering direction, the light penetration depth is dramatically increased. Results: The modeling results (Monte-Carlo statistical method) illustrate that the detected photons dramatically increased which is on order of 4 mm. So, this method can fix the light penetration problems in the optical imaging system. Conclusions: Finally, the original idea of this study attributes to the indirect and transient manipulation of the optical properties of the tissue through the nanoparticles plasmon properties engineering. Moreover, by engineering plasmonic nanoparticles, maybe, the penetration depth can be enhanced which means that we can easily send light into a soft tissue and get its back scattering.