Rapid ultraviolet photoacoustic remote sensing microscopy using voice-coil stage scanning

There is an unmet need for fast virtual histology technologies that exhibit histological realism and can scan large sections of fresh tissue within intraoperative time-frames. Ultraviolet photoacoustic remote sensing microscopy (UV-PARS) is an emerging imaging modality capable of producing virtual histology images that show good concordance to conventional histology stains. However, a UV-PARS scanning system that can perform rapid intraoperative imaging over mm-scale fields-of-view at fine resolution (<500 nm) has yet to be demonstrated. In this work, we present a UV-PARS system which utilizes voice-coil stage scanning to demonstrate finely resolved images for 2x2 mm2 areas at 500 nm sampling resolution in 1.33 minutes and coarsely resolved images for 4x4 mm2 areas at 900 nm sampling resolution in 2.5 minutes. The results of this work demonstrate the speed and resolution capabilities of the UV-PARS voice-coil system and further develop the potential for UV-PARS microscopy to be employed in a clinical setting.(c) 2023 Optica Publishing Group under the terms of the Optica Open Access Publishing Agreement

Automated summary

There is a need for fast virtual histology technologies that can scan large sections of fresh tissue within intraoperative time-frames. UV-PARS is an emerging imaging modality capable of producing virtual histology images that show good concordance to conventional histology stains. In this work, a UV-PARS system using voice-coil stage scanning is presented, demonstrating the speed and resolution capabilities of intraoperative imaging.