Widefield illumination photoacoustic imaging of blood vessel phantom

Abstract

We achieved photoacoustic tomographic imaging by employing widefield illumination using a pulsed laser source that irradiates the entire area of interest for the specimen under investigation. This approach can be simpler and more efficient than the use of narrow point-source scanning. Tomographic images were computed via an inverse-reconstruction-based algorithm from signals acquired using a single transducer with circular scanning configuration. The signals were coupled to the transducer probe with index-matching gel around the circumference of the specimen, eliminating the need for aquatic immersion. A blood-vessel-mimicking phantom was used to demonstrate our setup and the image reconstruction was also verified by simulation, proving the feasibility of a miniaturized system based on this design.