A Transparent Ultrasound Array for Real-time Optical, Ultrasound and Photoacoustic Imaging

Abstract

Objective and Impact StatementSimultaneous imaging of ultrasound and optical contrasts can help map structural, functional and molecular biomarkers inside living subjects with high spatial resolution. There is a need to develop a platform to facilitate this multimodal imaging capability to improve diagnostic sensitivity and specificity.IntroductionCurrently, combining ultrasound, photoacoustic and optical imaging modalities is challenging because con-ventional ultrasound transducer arrays are optically opaque. As a result, complex geometries are used to co-align both optical and ultrasound waves in the same field of view.MethodsOne elegant solution is to make the ultrasound transducer transparent to light. Here, we demonstrate a novel transparent ultrasound transducer (TUT) liner array fabricated using a transparent lithium niobate piezoelectric material for real-time multimodal imaging.ResultsThe TUT array consisted of 64 elements and centered at ∼ 6 MHz frequency. We demonstrate a quad-mode ultrasound, Doppler ultrasound, photoacoustic and fluorescence imaging in real-time using the TUT array directly coupled to the tissue mimicking phantoms.ConclusionThe TUT array successfully showed a multimodal imaging capability, and has potential applications in diagnosing cancer, neuro and vascular diseases, including image-guided endoscopy and wearable imaging.

Photoacoustic imaging for microcirculation

“…Recently, TUTs based on the piezoelectric active element in particular have gained significant interest from multiple groups in the photoacoustic and ultrasound community due to their versatility and cost effectiveness 170–176 . For example, Chen et al 177 used LiNbO3‐based TUT to image chicken embryo vasculature and for melanoma detection.…”