Abstract

We developed Photoacoustic Tissue Scanning to tomographically image optically absorbing structures in tissue. With 532 nm light depths down to 6-9 mm were reached. As sample a piece of chicken breast with a human hair is used. Small PVdF piezoelectric hydrophones were used for detection, in scanning mode for imaging purposes. The depth resolution is about 10 µm, and the lateral resolution is limited by the diameter of the detector (200 µm in our case). Besides imaging, Photoacoustics can also be used for determining the layer thickness. It will be shown that it is possible to detect the thickness of skin in vivo.

© 1999 Optical Society of America