Development of a Compact Photoacoustic Tomography Imaging System with Dual Single-Element Transducers for Image Enhancement

Objective: This paper proposes a new photoacoustic computed tomography (PACT) imaging system employing dual ultrasonic transducers with different frequencies. When imaging complex biological tissues, photoacoustic (PA) signals with multiple frequencies are produced simultaneously; however, due to the limited bandwidth of a single-frequency transducer, the received PA signals with specific frequencies may be missing, leading to a low imaging quality.

Methods: In contrast to our previous work, the proposed system has a compact volume as well as specific selection of the detection center frequency of the transducer, which can provide a comprehensive range for the detection of PA signals. In this study, a series of numerical simulation and phantom experiments were performed to validate the efficacy of the developed PACT system.

Results: The images generated by our system combined the advantages of both high resolution and ideal brightness/contrast.

Conclusion: The interchangeability of transducers with different frequencies provides potential for clinical deployment under the circumstance where a single frequency transducer cannot perform well.