Microwave-induced thermoacoustic imaging for biomedical applications

Abstract

Microwave-induced thermoacoustic imaging (MTAI) is an emerging physical imaging technology that combines the high resolution of ultrasound imaging with the high contrast of microwave imaging and the advantages of deep penetration of microwave. MTAI uses microwave as the excitation source and ultrasound as the information carrier, through the transformation of microwave to ultrasound energy transfer form to achieve non-destructive, high-resolution imaging of biological tissue at a depth of centimetres. The contrast of MTAI image is determined by the difference of microwave absorption. In biological tissues, polar molecules such as water molecules (molecular polarization loss) and ions (ion polarization loss) are mainly used as signal sources to obtain structural and functional images of biological tissues. After more than 20 years of development, MTAI has been applied to imaging various biological tissues and detecting multiple diseases, such as brain imaging, breast imaging, joint imaging, prostate cancer detection, cerebral hemorrhage detection, etc. This paper provides a comprehensive review on: (1) the principle of MTAI, (2) application in the biomedical field, and (3) future development direction.

Microwave-Based Dielectric Properties as an Electrophysiological Biomarker: Future Perspectives

“…They provide measurements of different tissue layers in the eye without direct contact [183]. A newer technique, microwave-induced thermoacoustic tomography (MITT), uses microwaves to measure the electrical activity of the eye and may be useful in the diagnosis and monitoring of glaucoma [184]. Further research should be conducted to use this microwave technology in the diagnosis of the EP disorders of the eye and to understand its potential as well as to ensure safety.…”

Microwave‐induced thermoacoustic microscopy based on short‐pulse microwave and high‐frequency point‐focused ultrasonic transducer

“…used microwaves with a pulse width of 500 ns for MITAI of human breast tissue 29 . Up to now, MITAI studies have generally used short‐pulse microwaves of 300−1000 ns, which can achieve a resolution of about 0.45‐1 mm in the imaging plane 5,27,26,30 (details can be found in Table S1 in the supporting materials). In 2012, Xing et al.…”

Hierarchically porous closed-pore hard carbon as a plateau-dominated high-performance anode for sodium-ion batteries

“…Herein, the pre-treatment of sucrose was achieved by a microwave-assisted solvothermal method to induce more defects, diverse pore-size distributions, and a high degree of compaction for spherical particles offered to prepare homogeneous electrodes for excellent sodium-ion storage. 20,21 The morphology and microstructure of the microwaved MSHCs before and after the single-step carbonization were characterized by SEM. After microwave-assisted solvothermal synthesis, the hydrochar shows a microsphere-like morphology with severe agglomeration (Fig.…”