Photoacoustic ophthalmoscopy for in vivo retinal imaging

Opt Express. 2010 Feb 15;18(4):3967-72. doi: 10.1364/OE.18.003967.

Abstract

We have developed a non-invasive photoacoustic ophthalmoscopy (PAOM) for in vivo retinal imaging. PAOM detects the photoacoustic signal induced by pulsed laser light shined onto the retina. By using a stationary ultrasonic transducer in contact with the eyelids and scanning only the laser light across the retina, PAOM provides volumetric imaging of the retinal micro-vasculature and retinal pigment epithelium at a high speed. For B-scan frames containing 256 A-lines, the current PAOM has a frame rate of 93 Hz, which is comparable with state-of-the-art commercial spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT). By integrating PAOM with SD-OCT, we further achieved OCT-guided PAOM, which can provide multi-modal retinal imaging simultaneously. The capabilities of this novel technology were demonstrated by imaging both the microanatomy and microvasculature of the rat retina in vivo.

Publication types

  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Acoustics / instrumentation*
  • Equipment Design
  • Equipment Failure Analysis
  • Humans
  • Retina / anatomy & histology*
  • Retinoscopes*