New photoacoustic imaging technology, by Chinese researchers

imaging

Researchers from Jinan University in China have designed a smart photoacoustic imaging approach with the help of a laser light and ultrasound. The new method has the potential to go onto medical diagnostics, wearable devices and instrumentation.

With optical fibre technology, the researchers formulated new sensors for photoacoustic imaging that uses fibre-optic ultrasound detection to examine the acoustic effects on laser pulses through temperature changes that arise because of the elastic strain.

Long Jin, the lead researcher said that the new sensors were developed specially for medical imaging and has better sensitivity as oppose to the current piezoelectric transducers.

They designed an ultrasound sensor which included a compact laser built within the 8µ diameter core of a single-mode optical fibre, which is doped with ytterbium and erbium to obtain essential optical gain. This will be immensely helpful in photoacoustic microscopy.

“By raster scanning the laser spot, we can obtain a photoacoustic image of the vessels and capillaries of a mouse’s ear.” Explained Jin, “This method can also be used to structurally image other tissues and functionally image oxygen distribution by using other excitation wavelengths – which takes advantage of the characteristic absorption spectra of different target tissues.”

This laser sensor can also be used for endoscopes along with having potential wearable applications. Because it has an 8µ diameter, it can be an alternative for current commercial endoscopic products with much larger dimensions.

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