Dual-view photoacoustic microscopy for quantitative cell nuclear imaging.

ABSTRACT

Optical-resolution photoacoustic microscopy (OR-PAM) is an emerging imaging modality for studying biological tissues. However, in conventional single-view OR-PAM, the lateral and axial resolutions-determined optically and acoustically, respectively-are highly anisotropic. In this Letter, we introduce dual-view OR-PAM to improve axial resolution, achieving three-dimensional (3D) resolution isotropy. We first use 0.5 µm polystyrene beads and carbon fibers to validate the resolution isotropy improvement. Imaging of mouse brain slices further demonstrates the improved resolution isotropy, revealing the 3D structure of cell nuclei in detail, which facilitates quantitative cell nuclear analysis.