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High-resolution optical imaging modalities, such as optical coherence tomography, confocal microscopy, and multiphoton microscopy, have numerous benefits. However, the spatial resolution decreases significantly as the imaging depth increases. This is because of the diffuse nature of light transport in soft tissues1,2. The integration of optical excitation and ultrasound detection provides a solution to overcome the challenge of high-resolution optical imaging in deep tissues. Photoacoustic microscopy (PAM) is one such modality that can provide deeper imaging than other optical imaging modalities. It has been successfully applied to in vivo structural, functional, molecular, and cell imaging3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13 studies by combining the strong optical absorption contrast with the high spatial resolution from ultrasound.
In PAM, a short laser pulse irradiates the tissue/sample. The absorption of light by chromophores (e.g., melanin, hemoglobin, water etc.) results in a temperature increase, which in turn results in the production of pressure waves in the form of acoustics waves (photoacoustic waves). The generated photoacoustic waves can be detected by a wideband ultrasonic transducer outside the tissue boundary. Utilizing weak optical and tight acoustic focusing, deep-tissue imaging can be achieved in acoustic resolution photoacoustic microscopy (AR-PAM)14,15,16. In AR-PAM, a lateral resolution of 45 µm and an imaging depth up to 3 mm have been demonstrated15. In order to resolve single capillaries (~5 µm) acoustically, ultrasonic transducers operating at >400 MHz central frequencies are required. At such high frequencies, the penetration depth is less than 100 µm. The problem caused by tight acoustic focusing can be resolved using tight optical focusing. Optical resolution photoacoustic microscopy (OR-PAM) is capable of resolving single capillaries, or even a single cell17, and a lateral resolution of 0.5 µm has been achieved18,19,20,21,22,23,24. The use of a photonic nanojet can help to achieve a resolution beyond the diffraction-limited resolution25,26. In OR-PAM, the penetration depth is limited due to light focusing, and it can image up to ~1.2 mm inside the biological tissue23. Therefore, AR-PAM can image deeper, but with a lower resolution, and OR-PAM can image with a very high resolution, but with limited imaging depth. The imaging speed of the AR and OR-PAM system mainly depends upon the pulse repetition rate of the laser source27.
Combining AR-PAM and OR-PAM will be of great benefit to applications that require both a high resolution and deeper imaging. Little effort has been made to combine these systems together. Usually, two different imaging scanners are used for imaging, which requires that the sample be moved between both systems, thus making it difficult to perform in vivo imaging. However, hybrid imaging with both AR and OR PAM enables imaging with scalable resolutions and depths. In one approach, an optical fiber bundle is used to deliver light for both the AR and OR PAM. In this approach, two separate lasers (a high-energy laser at 570 nm for the AR and a low-energy, high-repetition rate laser at 532 nm for the OR) are used, making the system inconvenient and expensive28. The OR-PAM laser wavelength is fixed, and many studies, such as on oxygen saturation, are not possible using this combined system. Comparative studies between AR and OR PAM are also not possible because of the difference in laser wavelengths between the AR and OR. Moreover, AR-PAM uses bright-field illumination; hence, strong photoacoustic signals from the skin surface limit the image quality. For this reason, the system cannot be used for many bioimaging applications. In another approach to perform AR and OR PAM, the optical and ultrasound focus is shifted, which makes the light focus and ultrasound focus unaligned. Thus, the image quality is not optimal29. Using this technique, the AR-PAM and OR-PAM can achieve only 139 µm and 21-µm resolutions, respectively, making it a poor-resolution system. Another approach, which includes changing the optical fiber and collimating optics, was reported to switch between AR and OR PAM, making the alignment process difficult30. In all of these cases, AR-PAM did not use dark-field illumination. The use of dark-field illumination can reduce the generation of strong photoacoustic signals from the skin surface. Therefore, deep-tissue imaging can be performed using ring-shaped illumination, as the detection sensitivity of deep photoacoustic signals will be higher compare to that of bright-field illumination.
This work reports a switchable AR and OR PAM (AR-OR-PAM) imaging system capable of both high-resolution imaging and low-resolution deep-tissue imaging of the same sample, using the same laser and scanner for both systems. The performance of the AR-OR-PAM system was characterized by determining the spatial resolution and imaging depth using phantom experiments. In vivo blood vasculature imaging was performed on a mouse ear to demonstrate its biological imaging capability.