Time-gated diffuse correlation spectroscopy for functional imaging via 1064 nm pulse laser shaping and superconducting nanowire single photon sensing

Abstract

Recently, we developed a time-domain diffuse correlation spectroscopy (TD-DCS) method for neurovascular sensing with higher brain sensitivity. In this paper, laser pulse shaping was designed and demonstrated for TD-DCS at 1064 nm. A quantum superconducting nanowire single-photon detector (SNSPD) with high photon detection efficiency (PDE) and low jitter collects the back-scattered light from the brain. The presented approach is the first step towards scaling up a full fiber optic cap with 96 source channels and 192 custom-made single-photon detectors which will cover most of an adult head.