Development of a new pulsed source for photoacoustic imaging based on aperiodically poled lithium niobate

Abstract

Abstract:We present the development of a source of deep-red radiation for photoacoustic imaging. This source, which is based on two cascaded wavelength conversion processes in aperiodically poled lithium niobate, emits 10 nanosecond pulses of over 500 µJ at 710 nm. Photoacoustic images were obtained from phantoms designed to mimic the optical and acoustic properties of oral tissue. Results indicate this device is a viable source of optical pulses for photoacoustic applications.

Efficient conversion from infrared to red light by cascaded nonlinear optical processes using an aperiodically poled lithium niobate crystal

“…We obtained a red beam with all of the domain structures; in all cases it had a spectrum centered at 710 nm with a large bandwidth (∼10 nm FWHM) and a temporal duration of ∼9 ns (FWHM) (Yankelevich, González, Cudney, Ríos, & Marcu, 2014). The output energy per pulse at 710 nm vs. pump energy for the best two structures, one with w = 0.20 and the other with w = 0.34, is shown in Figure 2.…”