title: Collecting back-reflected photons in photoacoustic microscopy.
abstract: Since the photoacoustic effect relies only on the absorbed optical energy, the back-reflected photons from samples in optical-resolution photoacoustic microscopy are usually discarded. By employing a 2 x 2 single-mode fiber optical coupler in a laser-scanning optical-resolution photoacoustic microscope for delivering the illuminating laser light and collecting the back reflected photons, a fiber-optic confocal microscope is integrated with the photoacoustic microscope. Thus, simultaneous multimodal imaging can be achieved with a single light source and images from the two modalities are intrinsically registered. Such capabilities are demonstrated in imaging both phantoms and small animals in vivo.
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI 53201, USA. zhang25@uwm.edu
authors.forename: Hao F
authors.initials: HF
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Jing
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Qing
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Wei
authors.forename: Tan
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Shuliang
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Jiao
authors.forename: Carmen A
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Puliafito
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D005336:Fiber Optic Technology / Q000295:instrumentation*; D007089:Image Enhancement / Q000295:instrumentation*; D051379:Mice; D033401:Microscopy, Acoustic / Q000295:instrumentation*; D018613:Microscopy, Confocal / Q000295:instrumentation*; D019047:Phantoms, Imaging; D017785:Photons; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D018511:Systems Integration