Development of New Photoacoustic Technology for Tissue Examination

The project MUFS2D – Multimodal Photoacoustic Sensor Technology for Simultaneous 2D Imaging and Functionalisation of Tissue – aims to build and develop knowledge about a new multimodal medical diagnostic technology that is a combination of traditional ultrasound technology and photoacoustics fused in one sensor.

Ultrasound has since long been used for various medical purposes and is now a well established examination and diagnostic method for imaging of tissue in 2D and 3D in a wide range of medical specialties. Over the past two decades, photoacoustic imaging (PAI) along with photoacoustic tomography (PAT) and photoacoustic microscopy (PAM) have been developed and are increasingly used for imaging and diagnostics.

The photoacoustic techniques are well suited for imaging biological tissue in 2D or 3D and since they are based
on the absorption of laser light and photoacoustic methods provide therefore other imaging and diagnostic possibilities than with traditional ultrasound.

Both traditional ultrasound and photoacoustic imaging are inherently non-invasive techniques and use non-ionizing radiation, which provides advantages over other imaging techniques, such as X-rays.

The MUFS2D project aims to build and develop knowledge about a new multimodal medical diagnostic technology that is a combination of traditional ultrasound technology and modern photo acoustics fused in one sensor. The intended use is biomedical imaging in 2D with the possibility of functionalizing the measurement data with different types of examinations such as spectroscopic studies or blood flow analysis in tissue in vivo.

The MUFS2D project consists of three main parts:

• development of full-optical excitation of ultrasound by controlled absorption of pulsedlaser light (LIUS),
• development of a transparent one-dimensional piezoelectric array with associated electronics and signal processing for photoacoustic 2D imaging of tissue,
• development of efficient algorithms for signal processing, 2D imaging and functionalization of measurement data.

The overall goal of the proposed project is to meet the idea of precision health by developing technology that provides the opportunity to quickly make the right diagnosis of various diseases with increased precision, which provides increased opportunities to give our population better health and a more sustainable and longer life.

Publications

Segerlund, M. & Löfqvist, T. (2024). Laser-induced ultrasound in multiple thin layers—An analytical solution. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 156(2), 1091-1098. Link to publisher External link.