Comparative experiments of photoacoustic system using laser light source and LED array light source

We’ve successfully measured photoacoustic signal by NIR-LED array that has very small power, approx. 1/1500 of light amount compared with Nd:YAG OPO light. In order to achieve high output power, we drove NIR-LED array with unusual amount of electric current. The experiment results showed that the photoacoustic signal strength was about 1/40 of the laser, which suggests NIR-LED array has good photoacoustic reception efficiency versus the ultrasound transducer bandwidth. NIR-LED array photoacoustic system may be able to achieve high-speed imaging which cannot be obtained by the solid-state laser. NIR-LED system can be a game changer for photoacoustic imaging.