Brillouin Light Scattering Spectroscopy involves measuring the inelastic scattered light from thermal vibrations. The measured spectra – which is the result of photons coupling to low energy acoustic phonon modes in a sample – is related to the respective phonon velocities, which in turn are related to the high frequency elastic moduli in the probed region. It can thus be used to all optically map the mechanical properties of samples. In a confocal or line-scanning scheme these can be measured with near diffraction limited optical resolution in 3 dimensions (Brillouin Microscopy), and depending on the measurement configuration different elastic moduli can be extracted.

An established technique in condensed matter physics, it is only recently gaining popularity for life science and biomedical applications. This is largely due to the realization of improved high resolution spectrometers together with growing evidence that mechanical properties can play an often critical role for many fundamental biological processes ranging from embryonic development to disease proliferation. Being able to probe these non-invasively and in a label-free manner could thus offer huge potential both in understanding the underlying biophysical mechanisms as well as for future diagnostics.

Though Brillouin Light Scattering Microspectroscopy holds great potential several challenges remain in order for it to become a routine lab tool or diagnostics technique. Among these are (1) the interpretation of the Brillouin scattering measured mechanical properties (which are unique to thosen measured with other techniques employed in mechanobiology and biomechanics) in relation to biophysical and biomedically relevant processes. (2) Instrument and data analysis advances for fast and high resolution spatial mapping, miniaturization (for endoscopic and portable-probe implementations), and extracting time, angle and polarization resolved information in biological samples. (3) Correlative studies with other techniques probing mechanics, structure and chemistry (4) Translation to medical and clinical/pre-clinical settings. The International BioBrillouin Society has been set up in order to address these as a community.

Board Members

Alberto Bilenca, Celia Sousa, Daniele Fioretto, Darryl Overby, Francesca Palombo, Giancarlo Roucco, Giuliano Scarcelli, Giuseppe Antonnaci, Irina Kabakova, Jeremie Margueritat, Jitau Zhang, Jochen Guck, Juergen Czarske, Kareem Elsayad, Kristie Koski, Maurizio Mattarelli, Michael Monaghan, Peter Török, Robert Prevedel, Silvia Caponi, Seok-hyun (Andy) Yun, Stephen Malin, Thomas Dehoux, Thorsten Hamann, Victoria Maria Gomez, Vladislav Yakovlev