Concurrent photoacoustic and ultrasound microscopy with a coaxial dual-element ultrasonic transducer

Yuqi Tang; Wei Liu; Yang Li; Qifa Zhou; Junjie Yao

doi:10.1186/s42492-018-0003-4

Concurrent photoacoustic and ultrasound microscopy with a coaxial dual-element ultrasonic transducer

Vis Comput Ind Biomed Art. 2018 Sep 5;1(1):3. doi: 10.1186/s42492-018-0003-4.

Authors

Yuqi Tang¹, Wei Liu¹, Yang Li², Qifa Zhou², Junjie Yao³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Biomedical Engineering, Duke University, Durham, NC, 27708, USA.
² Department of Ophthalmology, Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, 90089, USA.
³ Department of Biomedical Engineering, Duke University, Durham, NC, 27708, USA. junjie.yao@duke.edu.

Abstract

Simultaneous photoacoustic and ultrasound (PAUS) imaging has attracted increasing attention in biomedical research to probe the optical and mechanical properties of tissue. However, the resolution for majority of the existing PAUS systems is on the order of 1 mm as the majority are designed for clinical use with low-frequency US detection. Here we developed a concurrent PAUS microscopy that consists of optical-resolution photoacoustic microscopy (OR-PAM) and high-frequency US pulse-echo imaging. This dual-modality system utilizes a novel coaxial dual-element ultrasonic transducer (DE-UST) and provides anatomical and functional information with complementary contrast mechanisms, achieving a spatial resolution of 7 μm for PA imaging and 106 μm for US imaging. We performed phantom studies to validate the system's performance. The vasculature of a mouse's hind paw was imaged to demonstrate the potential of this hybrid system for biomedical applications.

Keywords: Coaxial dual-element ultrasonic transducer; Concurrent imaging; Photoacoustic microscopy; Ultrasound microscopy.