Abstract
Optical-resolution photoacoustic microscopy (OR-PAM) is an imaging tool to provide in vivo optically sensitive images in biomedical research. To achieve a small size, fast imaging speed, wide scan range, and high signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) in a water environment, we introduce a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)-based 2-axis scanner for a flexible and waterproof structure. The design, theoretical background, fabrication process and performance of the scanner are explained in details. The designed and fabricated scanner has dimensions of 15 × 15 × 15 mm along the X, Y and Z axes, respectively. The characteristics of the scanner are tested under DC and AC conditions. By pairing with electromagnetic forces, the maximum scanning angles in air and water are 18° and 13° along the X and Y axes, respectively. The measured resonance frequencies in air and water are 60 and 45 Hz along the X axis and 45 and 30 Hz along the Y axis, respectively. Finally, OR-PAM with high SNRs is demonstrated using the fabricated scanner, and the PA images of micro-patterned samples and microvasculatures of a mouse ear are successfully obtained with high-resolution and wide-field of view. OR-PAM equipped with the 2-axis PDMS based waterproof scanner has lateral and axial resolutions of 3.6 μm and 26 μm, respectively. This compact OR-PAM system could potentially and widely be used in preclinical and clinical applications.
Highlights
Photoacoustic microscopy (PAM) has become an important biomedical imaging technique that achieves high-resolution and rich optical contrast by merging optical irradiation and ultrasound detection [1]
Two important scanning characteristics of the 2A-PDMS-WP-scanner include the maximum scanning angle and scanning speed; these characteristics are related to the field of view (FOV) and imaging speed in optical-resolution PAM (OR-PAM), respectively
Full width at half maximum (FWHM) in the plot means a lateral resolution of the system
Summary
Photoacoustic microscopy (PAM) has become an important biomedical imaging technique that achieves high-resolution and rich optical contrast by merging optical irradiation and ultrasound detection [1]. The conventional OR-PAM systems utilize a special opto-ultrasound beam combiner for coaxial and confocal alignment of light illumination and ultrasound detection [14]. To improve the imaging speed, microelectromechanical systems (MEMS)-based scanners have been widely developed. Among them silicon-based MEMS scanners have many advantages due to their small sizes and fast scanning speeds. They have been used in numerous medical imaging applications such as confocal microscopy [16], optical coherence tomography [17], and multi-photon microscopy [18]. Our group reports the fast OR-PAM system with a 2-axis water-proofing MEMS scanner [21]. 2A-PDMS-WP-scanner by photoacoustically imaging gold micro-patterns in vitro and microvasculatures of a mouse ear in vivo
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