Master internship positions available All-optical photoacoustic imaging of neuronal activity

Context
The study of large-scale neuronal circuits throughout the brain is currently one of the biggest challenges in neurobiology1. Non-invasive imaging of neuronal activity with single-cell resolution is however limited to shallow depths, due to prominent light scattering beyond one millimeter2. Photoacoustic imaging, a fascinating technique relying on ultrasound generation upon the absorption of a light pulse, has been developed to overcome this issue, enabling to probe optical absorption contrast at large depths in biological tissue3.
To achieve cellular resolution, the detected ultrasound bandwidth must be as large as 100 MHz, which is beyond the reach of conventional piezo-electric based sensors. We therefore developed optical sensing techniques of ultrasound to overcome this issue4,5.

Research program
Our goal is to push forward the capabilities of this technique and reach the spatio-temporal resolution required to image the activity of neurons in vivo.

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