In photoacoustic imaging the ultrasonic signals are usually detected by contacting transducers. For some applications, contact with the tissue should be avoided, e.g. in those of brain functional imaging. As alternatives to contacting transducers interferometric techniques can be used to acquire photoacoustic signals remotely. Here, a system for non-contact photoacoustic tomography imaging (NCPAT) has been established. This approach enables NCPAT not to exceed laser exposure safety limits. The stimulated source of NCPAT utilized a laser with center wavelength of 532 nm and output intensity of 17.5 mJ/cm2, and a laser heterodyne interferometry was used to receive the photoacoustic signals. The NCPAT was used to implement on a rotational imaging geometry for photoacoustic tomography with a real-tissue phantom. The photoacoustic imaging was obtained by applying a reconstruction algorithm to the data acquired for NCPAT. Experiments results showed that the NCPAT system with detection 15 dB bandwidth of 2.25 MHz could resolve spherical optical inclusions with dimension of 500 μm and multi-layered structure with optical contrast in strongly scattering medium. The method could expand the scope of photoacoustic and ultrasonic technology to in-vivo biomedical applications where contact is impractical.
The temperature dependence of relative permittivity and conductivity of ex-vivo pig liver, lung and heart at 2 450 MHz was studied. The relative permittivity and conductivity of three kinds of biological tissues were measured by the open-end coaxial line method. The dielectric model was fitted according to the principle of least square method. The results showed that the relative permittivity and conductivity of pig liver, pig lung and pig heart decreased with the increase of tissue temperature from 20 to 80 ℃. The relative permittivity and conductivity models of pig liver, pig lung and pig heart were established to reflect the law of dielectric properties of biological tissue changing with temperature and provide a reference for the parameters setting of thermal ablation temperature field.