Integrated acoustic-resolution and optical-resolution photoacoustic microscopy using a single multifunctional acoustic lens

Abstract

With the rapid development of photoacoustic imaging, it has been widely used in various research fields such as biology, medicine and nanotechnology. Due to the huge difference among photoacoustic imaging systems, it is hard to integrate them in one platform. To solve this problem, we propose to develop a new universal photoacoustic imaging platform that integrates acoustic-resolution photoacoustic microscopy and optical-resolution photoacoustic microscopy through a multifunctional liquid lens. This lens takes advantage of an inherently low acoustic impedance and a tunable focal length that was characterized by the infusion volume of the liquid. In this paper, the liquid lens was used to realize confocal of laser illumination and acoustic detection for both acoustic-resolution and optical-resolution photoacoustic microscopy. The home-made polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) acoustic transducer had a center frequency of 10MHz and -6dB frequency spectrum from 4MHz to 15MHz which yielded to an axial resolution of 70 μm. The lateral resolutions of acoustic- and optical-resolution photoacoustic microscopy were evaluated to be 180 μm and 4.8 μm, respectively. The vasculature of rat ears was carried out to evaluate the performance of optical-resolution photoacoustic microscopy.