Abstract :
The field of photoacoustic tomography has experienced considerable growth in the past few years. Although several commercially available pure optical imaging modalities, including confocal microscopy, two-photon microscopy, and optical coherence tomography, have been highly successful, none of these technologies can provide penetration beyond ~1 mm into scattering biological tissues, because they are based on ballistic and quasi-ballistic photons. Heretofore, there has been a void in high-resolution optical imaging beyond this penetration limit. Photoacoustic tomography, which combines high ultrasonic resolution and strong optical contrast in a single modality, has broken through this limitation and filled this void. In this paper, the fundamentals of photoacoustics are first introduced. Then, scanning photoacoustic microscopy and reconstruction-based photoacoustic tomography (or photoacoustic computed tomography) are covered.
Keywords :
acoustic microscopy; acoustic tomography; biological tissues; biomedical optical imaging; biomedical ultrasonics; image reconstruction; image resolution; optical microscopy; optical tomography; photoacoustic effect; ballistic photons; confocal microscopy; high ultrasonic resolution; high-resolution optical imaging; optical coherence tomography; optical contrast; optical imaging modalities; penetration limitation; photoacoustic computed tomography; quasiballistic photons; reconstruction-based photoacoustic tomography; scanning photoacoustic microscopy; scattering biological tissues; two-photon microscopy; Biological tissues; Biomedical optical imaging; Computed tomography; Optical imaging; Optical microscopy; Optical scattering; Particle scattering; Photonics; Single photon emission computed tomography; Tutorial; Microwave-induced acoustic imaging; optical imaging; optoacoustic imaging; photoacoustic imaging (PAI); photoacoustic microscopy (PAM); photoacoustic tomography; thermoacoustic tomography;
