Compressed single-shot 3D photoacoustic imaging with a single-element transducer

Three-dimensional (3D) photoacoustic imaging (PAI) can provide rich information content and has gained increasingly more attention in various biomedical applications. However, current 3D PAI methods either involves pointwise scanning of the 3D volume using a single-element transducer, which can be time-consuming, or requires an array of transducers, which is known to be complex and expensive. By utilizing a 3D encoder and compressed sensing techniques, we develop a new imaging modality that is capable of single-shot 3D PAI using a single-element transducer. The proposed method is validated with phantom study, which demonstrates single-shot 3D imaging of different objects and 3D tracking of a moving object. After one-time calibration, while the system could perform single-shot 3D imaging for different objects, the calibration could remain effective over 7 days, which is highly beneficial for practical translation. Overall, the experimental results showcase the potential of this technique for both scientific research and clinical applications.