Fluorescence molecular tomography (FMT) emerges as a powerful non-invasive imaging tool with the ability to resolve fluorescence signals from sources located deep in living tissues. Yet, the accuracy of FMT reconstruction depends on the deviation of the assumed optical properties from the actual values. In this work, we improved the accuracy of the initial optical properties required for FMT using a new-generation time-domain (TD) near-infrared optical tomography (NIROT) system, which effectively decouples scattering and absorption coefficients. We proposed a multimodal paradigm combining TD-NIROT and continuous-wave (CW) FMT. Both numerical simulation and experiments were performed on a heterogeneous phantom containing a fluorescent inclusion. The results demonstrate significant improvement in the FMT reconstruction by taking the NIROT-derived optical properties as prior information. The multimodal method is attractive for preclinical studies and tumor diagnostics since both functional and molecular information can be obtained.

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Per-pixel time-to-digital converter (TDC) architectures have been exploited by single-photon avalanche diode (SPAD) sensors to achieve high photon throughput, but at the expense of fill factor, pixel pitch and readout efficiency. In contrast, TDC sharing architecture usually features high fill factor at small pixel pitch and energy efficient event-driven readout. While the photon throughput is not necessarily lower than that of per-pixel TDC architectures, since the throughput is not only decided by the TDC number but also the readout bandwidth. In this paper, a SPAD sensor with 32 × 32 pixels fabricated with a 180 nm CMOS image sensor technology is presented, where dynamically reallocating TDCs were implemented to achieve the same photon throughput as that of per-pixel TDCs. Each 4 TDCs are shared by 32 pixels via a collision detection bus, which enables a fill factor of 28% with a pixel pitch of 28.5 μm. The TDCs were characterized, obtaining the peak-to-peak differential and integral non-linearity of -0.07/+0.08 LSB and -0.38/+0.75 LSB, respectively. The sensor was demonstrated in a scanning light-detection-and-ranging (LiDAR) system equipped with an ultra-low power laser, achieving depth imaging up to 10 m at 6 frames/s with a resolution of 64 × 64 with 50 lux background light.

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The electrical properties of segments of tapered InAs nanowires (NWs) were investigated by in situ transmission electron microscopy with simultaneous I-V measurements using good ohmic contacts, thus excluding experimental artefacts as Joule heating caused by high-resistivity contacts. At low voltage the resistivity of InAs NWs with a diameter larger than 120 nm is constant (similar to 10(-2) Omega center dot cm). When the current is strongly increased a breakdown of the NW occurs close to the cathode side, whereby the main changes are an electromigration of In and a sublimation of As. The critical current density for breakdown was close to 10(6) A cm(-2) in most cases. A Joule heating and electromigration mechanism for the breakdown process is proposed.@en

Dark field TEM imaging using a stop of the central beam (DF-000) is reported, It is shown that a strong enhancement in the contrast can be obtained for graphene as example of weak phase object and endocytic multivescilar body as example of an unstained biological sample. No charging or significant contamination of the central beam stop is observed. For graphene, a resolution beyond 1 angstrom(-1) was easily obtained. DF-000 imaging can be considered as a good and easy to use alternative of a phase pla@en