Date of Award

8-31-2014

Document Type

Campus Access Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Physics, Applied

First Advisor

Chandra Yelleswarapu

Second Advisor

Stephen Arnason

Third Advisor

Bala Sundaram

Abstract

Oxygen is necessary for metabolism. It is carried from lungs to the rest of the body by hemoglobin in blood. As each hemoglobin molecule can carry a maximum of four oxygen molecules, oxygen saturation (sO2) is the measure of percentage of oxygen content in blood. For a normal person sO2 is 95% - 100%. Point-of-care testing of sO2 in blood is important in medicine. It enables doctors and caregivers for monitoring a wide variety of chronic illnesses. On the other hand, mapping of sO2 values by performing a raster scan across the region of interest in vivo is also essential in clinical and research settings, such as to evaluate the therapeutic effects of a treatment, monitoring healing of wounds, etc. Several non-invasive methods have been developed for this purpose. In this thesis, I measured the nonlinear absorption coefficient (beta) of blood samples using photoacoustic Z-scan technique. Results depict linear dependency between beta and blood oxygenation levels.

Comments

Free and open access to this Campus Access Thesis is made available to the UMass Boston community by ScholarWorks at UMass Boston. Those not on campus and those without a UMass Boston campus username and password may gain access to this thesis through resources like Proquest Dissertations & Theses Global or through Interlibrary Loan. If you have a UMass Boston campus username and password and would like to download this work from off-campus, click on the "Off-Campus UMass Boston Users" link above.

Download
Off-Campus UMass Boston Users

Share

COinS