Fully motorized optical-resolution photoacoustic microscopy

We have developed fully motorized optical-resolution photoacoustic microscopy (OR-PAM), which integrates five complementary scanning modes and simultaneously provides a high imaging speed and a wide field of view (FOV) with 2.6 mu m lateral resolution. With one-dimensional (1D) motion-mode mechanical scanning, we measured the blood flow through a cross section of a blood vessel in vivo. With two-dimensional (2D) optical scanning at a laser repetition rate of 40 kHz, we achieved a 2 kHz B-scan rate over a range of 50 mu m with 20 A-lines and 50 Hz volumetric-scan rate over a FOV of 50 mu m x 50 mu m with 400 A-lines, which enabled real-time tracking of cellular dynamics in vivo. With synchronized 1D optical and 2D mechanical hybrid scanning, we imaged a 10 mm x 8 mm FOV within three minutes, which is 20 times faster than the conventional mechanical scan in our second-generation OR-PAM. With three-dimensional mechanical contour scanning, we maintained the optimal signal-to-noise ratio and spatial resolution of OR-PAM while imaging objects with uneven surfaces, which is essential for quantitative studies. (C) 2014 Optical Society of America