Ragunathan Rahul, Mireles Miguel, Xu Edward, Lewis Aiden, Vanegas Morris, Fang Qianqian
Department of Bioengineering, Northeastern University, Boston, 02115, USA.
Sci Rep. 2025 Mar 21;15(1):9705. doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-94390-7.
We report a method to directly 3-D print complex heterogeneous optical phantoms with programmable tissue-mimicking absorption and scattering properties. The proposed approach utilizes commercially available multi-color mixing extruders and off-the-shelf polylactic acid filaments, making this technique low-cost and broadly accessible. We systematically characterized optical properties, including both absorption and reduced scattering coefficients, at a wide range of mixing ratios of gray, white, and translucent filaments and validated our hypothesis of a linear-mixing model between the filament mixing ratios and the resulting optical properties. Various techniques were used to design and fabricate sophisticated solid phantoms, including the design of color-purging towers, and the optimization of several printing parameters to improve print quality. To demonstrate the feasibility of this technique for generating anatomically complex phantoms with tunable optical absorption and scattering properties within tissue-relevant ranges, we designed and fabricated three heterogeneous optical phantoms. One of the presented phantoms was specifically designed to support quality assurance efforts in evaluating diffuse optics instruments and methodologies across various institutions. We have characterized the printed phantoms and observed an average error between 12%-15% compared to our linear-mixing model-predicted values. Future studies will target the usage of additional filament materials to expand potential imaging applications.
我们报告了一种直接三维打印具有可编程组织模拟吸收和散射特性的复杂异质光学体模的方法。所提出的方法利用市售的多色混合挤出机和现成的聚乳酸长丝，使该技术成本低廉且广泛可用。我们系统地表征了光学特性，包括吸收系数和约化散射系数，在灰色、白色和半透明长丝的广泛混合比例范围内，并验证了我们关于长丝混合比例与所得光学特性之间线性混合模型的假设。使用了各种技术来设计和制造复杂的实体体模，包括颜色净化塔的设计，以及优化几个打印参数以提高打印质量。为了证明该技术在生成具有与组织相关范围内可调光学吸收和散射特性的解剖学复杂体模方面的可行性，我们设计并制造了三个异质光学体模。其中一个展示的体模专门设计用于支持跨机构评估漫射光学仪器和方法的质量保证工作。我们已经对打印的体模进行了表征，并且观察到与我们的线性混合模型预测值相比，平均误差在12% - 15%之间。未来的研究将针对使用额外的长丝材料来扩展潜在的成像应用。
