Fluorescence lifetime imaging of human skin and hair

Multiphoton imaging has developed into an important technique for in-vivo research in life sciences. With the laser System DermaInspect (JenLab, Germany) laser radiation from a Ti:Sapphire laser is used to generate multiphoton-absorption deep in the human skin in vivo. The resulting autofluorescence radiation arises from endogenous fluorophores such as NAD(P)H, flavines, collagen, elastin, porphyrins und melanin. Second harmonic generation (SHG) was used to detect collagen structures in the dermal layer. Femtosecond laser multiphoton imaging offers the possibility of high-resolution optical tomography of human skin as well as fluorescence lifetime imaging (FLIM) with picosecond time resolution. In this work a photon detector with ultrashort rise time of less than 30ps was applied to FLIM measurements of human skin and hair with different pigmentation. Fluorescence lifetime images of different human hair types will be discussed.