Photoacoustic imaging with fiber optic technology: A review

Photoacoustic imaging (PAI) has achieved remarkable growth in the past few decades since it takes advantage of both optical and ultrasound (US) imaging. In order to better promote the wide clinical applications of PAI, many miniaturized and portable PAI systems have recently been proposed. Most of these systems utilize fiber optic technologies. Here, we overview the fiber optic technologies used in PAI. This paper discusses three different fiber optic technologies: fiber optic light transmission, fiber optic US transmission, and fiber optic US detection. These fiber optic technologies are analyzed in different PAI modalities including photoacoustic microscopy (PAM), photoacoustic computed tomography (PACT), and minimally invasive photoacoustic imaging (MIPAI).