Design of optoacoustic imaging system for deep penetration medical diagnostics

Abstract

The Photoacoustic effect has garnered large and widespread interests in recent years, especially in the field of biomedical systems and technology. Owing to its enhanced performance capabilities in contrast conventional optical or ultrasound imaging, photoacoustic (PA) imaging is a hybrid imaging modality that employs the use of the PA effect to obtain the desired result. It combines the ideal range and resolution property of optical and ultrasound imaging respectively, and the extent of its capabilities are still under deep research. A particular area of biomedical interest in recent years was using the photoacoustic effect to measure blood flow.

This report introduced the usage of chirp technique in photoacoustic velocity and position measurement of blood and provided verification of the technique’s ability to improve the parameters of current PA blood flow measurement methods. The research methodology consists of information gathering and theory verification. The theory was subjected to a MATLAB simulation to confirm the viability, and subsequently an actual experiment was conducted. The results are compared with published research to evaluate the technique’s effectiveness.

Experimental results have shown that the chirp technique is applicable in PA flowmetry and it had provided improved signal to noise ratio and spatial resolution. The results presented a usage of different technique in PA flowmetry and created opportunities of further improvements to the current technique. This will pave way for further in-depth research into the PA effect for biomedical applications.