Fully integrated photoacoustic microscopy for multi-scale and longitudinal imaging in translational biomedical...

Photoacoustic microscopy enables multi-scale, label-free biomedical imaging; however, limitations associated with system complexity, opto-acoustic alignment, and fragmented operational workflows hinder its widespread adoption. To address these challenges, we present a photoacoustic microscopy platform with fully integrated optical excitation, acoustic detection, scanning, and system control. It combines a ring-shaped ultrasound transducer with an integrated optical and mechanical scanning architecture, incorporating an angled galvanometer scanner and a motorized stage. This platform provides a balanced configuration that optimizes imaging speed, resolution, and coverage, achieving a lateral resolution of 3.00 µm and a versatile field of view extendable up to 28 × 28 mm², while maintaining a B-scan acquisition rate of up to 50 Hz. Enabled by a unified hardware-software environment and a streamlined pipeline from data acquisition to quantitative analysis, we demonstrate the system's translational utility through diverse in vivo applications in mice, including macro-scale anatomical imaging, micro-scale hemodynamic monitoring, contrast-enhanced functional imaging, pharmacodynamic assessment of epinephrine, and longitudinal monitoring of tumor progression. Collectively, these results establish the robustness and versatility of the proposed system, maintaining balanced performance in resolution, speed, and field of view, and positioning it as a practical platform for advanced structural, functional, and pathological imaging in translational biomedical research.