Mosaic acquisition and processing for optical-resolution photoacoustic microscopy

In optical-resolution photo-acoustic microscopy (OR-PAM), data acquisition time is limited by both laser pulse repetition rate (PRR) and scanning speed. Optical-scanning offers high speed, but limited, field of view determined by ultrasound transducer sensitivity. In this paper, we propose a hybrid optical and mechanical-scanning OR-PAM system with mosaic data acquisition and processing. The system employs fast-scanning mirrors and a diode-pumped, nanosecond-pulsed, Ytterbium-doped, 532-nm fiber laser with PRR up to 600 kHz. Data from a sequence of image mosaic patches is acquired systematically, at predetermined mechanical scanning locations, with optical scanning. After all imaging locations are covered, a large panoramic scene is generated by stitching the mosaic patches together. Our proposed system is proven to be at least 20 times faster than previous reported OR-PAM systems.