Conventional photoacoustic imaging system has limited temporal resolution and hence prohibits the applications in areas such as real-time 3D imaging. In this study, an ultrafast photoacoustic imaging system with its frame rate up to 2,000Hz is demonstrated. An ultrasound transducer with plane wave excitation and a high pulse repetition rate laser are utilized to acquire the data in parallel. Additionally, the 3D data acquisition which approaches the video rate is achieved when the volume data are collected by swept scanning of a motor. The synthetic aperture focusing technique (SAFT) based on the concept of the virtual source in the elevation plane is applied to improve the imaging quality. The 3D imaging has a frame rate of 12Hz to cover a square region of 19.2mm × 19.2mm.

Date Published: 17 February 2011
PDF: 5 pages
Proc. SPIE 7899, Photons Plus Ultrasound: Imaging and Sensing 2011, 78991J (17 February 2011); doi: 10.1117/12.875818

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 7899:
Photons Plus Ultrasound: Imaging and Sensing 2011
Alexander A. Oraevsky; Lihong V. Wang, Editor(s)