Sub-sampled Fabry-Perot photoacoustic scanner for fast 3D imaging

The planar Fabry Perot (FP) photoacoustic scanner provides exquisite high resolution 3D images of soft tissue structures for sub-cm penetration depths. However, as the FP sensor is optically addressed by sequentially scanning an interrogation laser beam over its surface, the acquisition speed is low. To address this, a novel scanner architecture employing 8 interrogation beams and an optimised sub-sampling framework have been developed that increase the data acquisition speed significantly. With a 200Hz repetition rate excitation laser, full 3D images can be obtained within 10 seconds. Further increases in imaging speed with only minor decreases in image quality can be obtained by applying sub-sampling techniques with rates as low as 12.5%. This paper shows 3D images reconstructed from sub-sampled data for an ex vivo dataset, and results from a dynamic phantom imaging experiment.