Acoustic Resolution Photoacoustic Microscopy using Needle Hydrophone based on Reconstructions

Abstract

Although AR-PAM can achieve deeper imaging than OR-PAM, the depths of focus of most AR-PAM systems are too low compared to their total imageable depths. Meanwhile, needle hydrophone is known exhibiting a wider bandwidth and detecting angle than the focused transducers typically applied to conventional AR-PAM systems, implying that it can detect photoacoustic signals approaching from multiple different directions simultaneously at a detection position. Thus, if a raster scanning is performed for an AR-PAM implemented based on a needle hydrophone, the signal acquisition effect could be equivalent to that obtained by an array. This must be an important aspect that can be compared to the use of an array transducer because it can provide good cost-effective alternative to a lab where expensive array transducer is not available.