Multifocal photoacoustic microscopy through an ergodic relay (Conference Presentation)

To date, most optical-resolution photoacoustic microscopy (OR-PAM) systems rely on mechanical scanning with confocally aligned optical excitation and ultrasonic detection. As a result, the imaging speed of these systems is limited by the scanning speed. Although several multifocal OR-PA computed tomography (MFOR-PACT) systems had been developed to address this limitation, they were hindered by the complex design in a constrained physical space. Here, we present a two-dimensional (2D) MFOR-PAM system based on a 2D microlens array and an acoustic ergodic relay. This system is able to detect PA signals generated from 400 optical foci in parallel with a single-element transducer, and then raster scan the optical foci patterns to form an image. This system has improved the imaging resolution of a conventional photoacoustic ergodic relay system from 220 μm to 13 μm. Moreover, this system has reduced the imaging time of a conventional OR-PAM system at the same resolution and laser repetition rate by 400 times. We demonstrated the ability of the system with both in vitro and in vivo experiments.