High-speed photoacoustic microscopy: A review dedicated on light sources

Abstract

In recent years, many methods have been investigated to improve imaging speed in photoacoustic microscopy (PAM). These methods mainly focused upon three critical factors contributing to fast PAM: laser pulse repetition rate, scanning speed, and computing power of the microprocessors. A high laser repetition rate is fundamentally the most crucial factor to increase the PAM speed. In this paper, we review methods adopted for fast PAM systems in detail, specifically with respect to light sources. To the best of our knowledge, ours is the first review article analyzing the fundamental requirements for developing high-speed PAM and their limitations from the perspective of light sources.

State of the Art in Carbon Nanomaterials for Photoacoustic Imaging

“…Among the imaging techniques, photoacoustic imaging (PAI) has widely been explored in the last two decades since it has unique characteristics through inherited complementary advantages from optical imaging and USI [ 9 ]. Similar to pure optical imaging techniques, PAI can provide molecular information from the multispectral photoacoustic (PA) responses of biological tissues [ 10 ]; thus, it can be used for functional imaging, such as monitoring hemoglobin oxygen saturation levels (sO 2 ) [ 11 ], investigating melanin components [ 12 , 13 , 14 ], and detecting lipids [ 15 ]. However, unlike optical imaging methods, the photon diffusion in biological tissues usually does not affect the quality of PA images because the signal reception part of PAI is inherited from USI, which has a relatively high resolution in deep tissue.…”

Fully integrated photoacoustic microscopy and photoplethysmography of human in vivo

“…Despite the high-resolution imaging capability of PAM, its relatively slow imaging speed has been pointed out to be a limiting factor for its widespread applications in clinical settings. With recent advances in high-speed scanning, PAM systems with B-scan rates as high as a few hundred hertz have been actively explored [21] , [22] , [23] , [24] . PAM’s ability to perform high-speed and high-resolution imaging (within a few seconds per cubic millimeters and a resolution of a few micrometers) has enabled hemodynamic monitoring studies such as those on external stimulation, drug responses, vascular diseases, and regenerative medicine [25] , [26] , [27] , [28] .…”

Review on Multispectral Photoacoustic Analysis of Cancer: Thyroid and Breast

“…One unique advantage of PAI is its scalable resolution and large imaging depth for the target region [ 26 ]. Since laser excitation can be tightly focused in shallow areas, high-resolution PA images can be achieved within the optical diffusion limit (~1 mm under the skin) [ 27 , 28 ]. High-resolution PAI has been used for visualizing the hemodynamics of the brain, ear, and eye of mice in vivo [ 29 , 30 ].…”