Acousto-optic tomography of tissues in the reflective and coaxial configuration

Ultrasound- modulated optical tomography is a noninvasive imaging technique for biomedical diagnosis. With this technique, an imaging system takes advantage of focused ultrasonic field to mark the photon trajectories in a biological sample by modulating the optical path in the focal zone. The tagged photon reflects the local optical and mechanical properties in the ultrasonic focal zone and permits tomographic imaging of biological tissues by scanning. Based on the high- sensitivity detection technique, we have developed a reflective and coaxial configuration, which was more convenient and hopeful to produce an easy-controlling setup for practical application. In addition, this configuration can bring a new method to improve the spatial resolution of the tomographic plane paralle to the ultrasonic axis in the traditional configuration. Optical tomographys of the biological tissue were successfully obtained experimentally.