A fast photoacoustic imaging system based on a curved ultrasound transducer array

Non-invasive laser-induced photoacoustic tomography (PAT) is a promising imaging modality for the biological imaging field due to the intrinsic optical contrast of tissue and the high resolution of ultrasound. In contrast to common experimental setups that employ a single ultrasound transducer rotating around the target, we present a fast PAT system employing a 128-element curved ultrasound transducer array, parallel signal amplifier circuitry, and multi-channel data acquisition. Two-dimensional photoacoustic images of various phantoms and blood tubing were reconstructed based on the delay-and-sum algorithm. The reconstructed images agreed well with the original samples. The spatial resolution of the system reaches 0.2 mm, which matches the theoretical calculation. The device and methodology provide a rapid and reliable approach to imaging biological tissues and may have potential applications in noninvasive imaging and clinical diagnosis.