Single-side access, isotropic resolution, and multispectral three-dimensional photoacoustic imaging with rotate-translate scanning of ultrasonic detector array

Abstract. Photoacoustic imaging can achieve high-resolution three-dimensional (3-D) visualization of optical absorbers at penetration depths of ∼1  cm in biological tissues by detecting optically induced high ultrasound frequencies. Tomographic acquisition with ultrasound linear arrays offers an easy implementation of single-side access, parallelized, and high-frequency detection, but usually comes with an image quality impaired by the directionality of the detectors. Indeed, a simple translation of the array perpendicular to its median imaging plane is often used, but results both in a poor resolution in the translation direction and strong limited-view artifacts. To improve the spatial resolution and the visibility of complex structures while retaining a planar detection geometry, we introduce, in this paper, a rotate-translate scanning scheme and investigate the performance of a scanner implemented at 15 MHz center frequency. The developed system achieved a quasi-isotropic uniform 3-D resolution of ∼170  μm over a cubic volume of side length 8.5 mm, i.e., an improvement in the resolution in the translation direction by almost one order of magnitude. Dual-wavelength imaging was also demonstrated with ultrafast wavelength shifting. The validity of our approach was shown in vitro. We discuss the ability to enable in vivo imaging for preclinical and clinical studies.