Multimodal Non-Contact Photoacoustic And Oct Imaging Using A Fiber Based Approach

In this paper we present multimodal non-contact photoacoustic and OCT imaging. Photoacoustic signals are acquired remotely on the surface of a specimen with a Mach-Zehnder interferometer. The interferometer is realized in a fiber-optic network using a fiber laser at 1550nm as source. In the same fiber-optic network a spectral-domain OCT system is realized. The OCT system utilizes a superluminescent diode at 1325nm as light source; imaging data are acquired using a spectrometer with an InGaAs line array. Light from the fiber laser and the superluminescent diode are multiplexed into one fiber and the same objective is used for both imaging modalities. Reflected light is demultiplexed and guided to the respective imaging systems. We demonstrate the photoacoustic and OCT imaging modalities on different phantom samples. Finally, we show multimodal imaging with both modalities simultaneously. The resulting photoacoustic and OCT images match perfectly.