Combination of hyperspectral imaging and laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy for biomedical applications

Hyperspectral imaging (HSI) can be used to quickly and non-invasively monitor both physical and morphological characteristics as well as intrinsic chemical and molecular information about tissue pathology. Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) is an elemental analysis technique that is based on atomic emission spectroscopy and laser plasma emission spectroscopy. In this paper, we use both HIS and LIBS to quantitatively distinguish the organs of mice including brain, heart, liver, lung, kidney and spleen from their different reflectance spectra and LIBS spectra, respectively. The two approaches presented here provide complementary functional information and may have potential biomedical applications for early disease detection and diagnosis.