Effects of time-gated detection in diffuse optical imaging at short source-detector separation

The adoption of a short source-detector distance, combined with a time-resolved acquisition, can be advantageous in diffuse optical imaging due to the stricter spatial localization of the probing photons, provided that the strong burst of early photons is suppressed using a time-gated detection scheme. We propose a model for predicting the effect of the time-gated measurement system using a time-variant operator built on the system response acquired at different gate delays. The discrete representation of the system operator, termed Spread Matrix, can be analyzed to identify the bottlenecks of the detection system with respect to the physical problem under study. Measurements performed on tissue phantoms, using a time-gated single-photon avalanche diode and an interfiber distance of 2 mm, demonstrate that inhomogeneities down to 3 cm can be detected only if the decay constant of the detector is lower than 100 ps, while the transient opening of the gate has a less critical impact.