QUAWAOI – QUAsi continuous Waves for Acousto-Optic Imaging

Acousto-Optic (AO) imaging couples coherent light and ultrasounds to map in-depth (cm) optical properties of tissues. The technique has been massively reported on static phantoms, but because of temporal decorrelation and low photon signal level, in-vivo imaging of biological tissues remains yet to be demonstrated. Here, we suggest to revisit AO imaging by switching from continuous to pulsed illumination. This will allow to perform measurements on time-scales much lower than that of tissue decorrelation (<1ms). Whatsmore, drastic increase in signal to noise ratio is expected because of the significant increase in laser peak power, much greater than what is usually reported in the literature (100W>>1W). A solution for designing this source was discussed with Azurlight system using their fiber amplifier technology. It will then be possible to revisit photorefractive holography detection. Doing so, we aim to acquire the first AO in-vivo images in clinical-like realistic conditions.