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The mechanical properties of skin are important tissue parameters that are useful for understanding skin patho-physiology, which can aid disease diagnosis and treatment. This paper presents an innovative method that employs phase-sensitive spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (PhS-OCT) to characterize the biomechanical properties of skin by measuring surface waves induced by short impulses from a home-made shaker. Experiments are carried out on single and double-layer agar-agar phantoms, of different concentrations and thickness, and on in vivo human skin, at the forearm and the palm. For each experiment, the surface wave phase-velocity dispersion curves were calculated, from which the elasticity of each layer of the sample was determined. It is demonstrated that the experimental results agree well with previous work. This study provides a novel combination of PhS-OCT technology with a simple and an inexpensive mechanical impulse surface wave stimulation that can be used to non-invasively evaluate the mechanical properties of skin in vivo, and may offer potential use in clinical situations.

We report on a noncontact photoacoustic imaging (PAI) technique in which a low-coherence interferometer [(LCI), optical coherence tomography (OCT) hardware] is utilized as the acoustic detector. A synchronization approach is used to lock the LCI system at its highly sensitive region for photoacoustic detection. The technique is experimentally verified by the imaging of a scattering phantom embedded with hairs and the blood vessels within a mouse ear in vitro. The system's axial and lateral resolutions are evaluated at 60 and 30 μm, respectively. The experimental results indicate that PAI in a noncontact detection mode is possible with high resolution and high bandwidth. The proposed approach lends itself to a natural integration of PAI with OCT, rather than a combination of two separate and independent systems.

We report on a quantitative elastography technique achieved by combining phase-sensitive optical coherence tomography (PhS-OCT) with the surface acoustic wave (SAW) method. Different from traditional optical coherence elastography, the elastography is achieved by impulse-stimulated SAW, rather than by shear waves. PhS-OCT serves not only as a detector to measure SAW signals but also as a means to provide a cross-sectional image of the sample. The experimental results indicate that the combination of PhS-OCT with SAW is feasible to provide quantitative elastography of heterogeneous tissue samples.