A 3.47 e- Read Noise, 81 dB Dynamic Range Backside-Illuminated Multispectral Imager for Near-Infrared Fluorescence Image-Guided Surgery.

Near-infrared fluorescence image-guided surgery relies on an interdisciplinary community to develop near-infrared fluorescent markers and near-infrared sensitive cameras capable of mapping relevant structures during surgical procedures. As biochemists pursue a new generation of near-infrared fluorophores aimed at surgical oncology and other applications, optoelectronic engineers developing near-infrared imagers have been slow to adopt architectural improvements that will enhance outcomes in existing operations and to document optoelectronic characteristics that are needed to predict endpoints for new procedures. Here we present a single-chip snapshot multispectral imaging system that integrates arrays of bandpass optical filters and six-transistor backside-illuminated pixels to provide RGB-NIR images with low read noise (3.47 e−) and high dynamic range (81 dB). This imaging system is being used in clinical studies for sentinel lymph node mapping during breast cancer surgery.