Breast Implant Optical Coupling Medium

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Tom Dressel
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Breast Implant Optical Coupling Medium

Post by Tom Dressel »

This may sound really nuts, but I have had two silicone gel gilled breast implants sitting in a jar in my garage since 5/11/88.

Today, I thought that the gel would make a good optical coupling medium. The stuff has a consistancy of grape jelly and is water clear.

Any comments or suggestions?

Tom Dressel
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Re: Breast Implant Optical coupling Media

Post by guest »

If the stuff is too set up it wil not flow properly into the PMT-scintillator interface. It's gotta squish, but at the same time, not be too liquid.
Tom Dressel
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Re: Breast Implant Optical coupling Medium

Post by Tom Dressel »

The "gel" is really squishy, it is actually inside a thin silastic membrane. I would cut through the membrane to get at the gel. The gel will flow with minimal pressure on it, but it is viscous enough that it wont run out of the interface.

Tom Dressel
Captain_Proton
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Re: Breast Implant Optical Coupling Medium

Post by Captain_Proton »

As scientists, we know that solutions to problems can appear from the strangest places, BUT....
be careful...I know a woman who bought some of those things and now she doesn't want to act right.
The same just might be true for your detector. If it doesn't act right, you'll know why....
Starfire
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Re: Breast Implant Optical Coupling Medium

Post by Starfire »

The mind boggles --- Tom! dare I ask - are they second hand?
Tom Dressel
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Re: Breast Implant Optical Coupling Medium

Post by Tom Dressel »

Yes they are "salvage". I took them out of a patient in 1988. She wanted larger implants.

Tom Dressel
DaveC
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Re: Breast Implant Optical Coupling Medium

Post by DaveC »

Sidestepping this interesting "materials" topic ever so slightly,..... I think the index matching you are attempting to accomplish requires barely more than a few micron thick layer of material. Almost any silcone grease or gel compound should be more or less the same. The important issue for minimum reflectance is that the gel index of refraction be the geometric mean of the indices of the scintillator and PMT glass. Since these are both likely to be around 1.5xxx nothing is really too terribly critical here. You could probably get by with a wipe of mineral oil.. although it might tend to weep away.

Dave Cooper
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