A photoacoustic imaging system employing a curved-phased ultrasonic array and parallel electronics

Anastasios Maurudis; Fei Huang; Puyun Guo; Shikui Yan; Diego Castillo; Lihong V. Wang; Quing Zhu

doi:10.1117/12.648500

6 March 2006 A photoacoustic imaging system employing a curved-phased ultrasonic array and parallel electronics

Anastasios Maurudis, Fei Huang, Puyun Guo, Shikui Yan, Diego Castillo, Lihong V. Wang, Quing Zhu

Proceedings Volume 6086, Photons Plus Ultrasound: Imaging and Sensing 2006: The Seventh Conference on Biomedical Thermoacoustics, Optoacoustics, and Acousto-optics; 60861Q (2006) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.648500
Event: SPIE BiOS, 2006, San Jose, California, United States

Abstract

Real-time photoacoustic imaging requires ultrasonic array receivers and parallel data acquisition systems for the simultaneous detection of weak photoacoustic signals. In this paper, we introduce a newly completed ultrasonic receiving array system and report preliminary results of our measured point spread function. The system employs a curved ultrasonic phased array consisting of 128-elements, which span a quarter of a complete circle. The center frequency of the array is 5 MHz and the bandwidth is greater than 60%. In order to maximize the signal-to-noise ratio for photoacoustic signal detection, we utilized special designs for the analog front-end electronics. First, the 128 transducer-element signals were routed out using a 50-Ohm impedance matching PCB board to sustain signal integrity. We also utilize 128 low-noise pre-amplifiers, connected directly to the ultrasonic transducer, to amplify the weak photoacoustic signals before they were multiplexed to a variable-gain multi-stage amplifier chain. All front-end circuits were placed close to the transducer array to minimize signal lose due to cables and therefore improve the signal-to-noise ratio. Sixteen analog-to-digital converters were used to sample signals at a rate of 40 mega-samples per second with a resolution of 10-bits per sample. This allows us to perform a complete electronic scan of all 128 elements using just eight laser pulses.

Citation Download Citation

Anastasios Maurudis, Fei Huang, Puyun Guo, Shikui Yan, Diego Castillo, Lihong V. Wang, and Quing Zhu "A photoacoustic imaging system employing a curved-phased ultrasonic array and parallel electronics", Proc. SPIE 6086, Photons Plus Ultrasound: Imaging and Sensing 2006: The Seventh Conference on Biomedical Thermoacoustics, Optoacoustics, and Acousto-optics, 60861Q (6 March 2006); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.648500

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