The version in the Kent Academic Repository may differ from the final published version. Users are advised to check http://kar.kent.ac.uk for the status of the paper. Users should always cite the published version of record.
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Conventional optoacoustic microscopy (OAM) instruments have at their core a nanosecond pulse duration laser. If lasers with a shorter pulse duration are used, broader, higher frequency ultrasound waves are expected to be generated and as a result, the axial resolution of the instrument is improved. Here, we exploit the advantage offered by a picosecond duration pulse laser to enhance the axial resolution of an OAM instrument. In comparison to an instrument equipped with a 2-ns pulse duration laser, an improvement in the axial resolution of 50% is experimentally demonstrated by using excitation pulses of only 85 ps. To illustrate the capability of the instrument to generate high-quality optoacoustic images,
en-face
,
in-vivo
images of the brain of
Xenopus laevis
tadpole are presented with a lateral resolution of
throughout the entire axial imaging range.
In this study, for the first time, a Photoacoustic Microscopy instrument driven by a single optical source operating over a wide spectral range (475–2400 nm), covering slightly more than two octaves is demonstrated. Xenopus laevis tadpoles were imaged in vivo using the whole spectral range of 2000 nm of a supercontinuum optical source, and a novel technique of mapping absorbers is also demonstrated, based on the supposition that only one chromophore contributes to the photoacoustic signal of each individual voxel in the 3D photoacoustic image. By using a narrow spectral window (of 25 nm bandwidth) within the broad spectrum of the supercontinuum source at a time, in vivo hyper-spectral Photoacoustic images of tadpoles are obtained. By post-processing pairs of images obtained using different spectral windows, maps of five endogenous contrast agents (hemoglobin, melanin, collagen, glucose and lipids) are produced.
The version in the Kent Academic Repository may differ from the final published version. Users are advised to check http://kar.kent.ac.uk for the status of the paper. Users should always cite the published version of record.
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