Transparent high-frequency ultrasound transducer array for real-time interventional photoacoustic guidance

Photoacoustic tomography (PAT) provides both structural and functional information, making it a powerful tool for guiding interventional procedures. However, conventional ultrasound transducers are generally optically opaque, complicating PAT system design and hindering seamless integration with other optical imaging modalities. A novel transparent ultrasound transducer (TUT) linear array has been developed specifically for real-time interventional guidance. The TUT array-based PAT system demonstrates high performance with 378.2[Formula: see text] [Formula: see text]m lateral resolution, 599.1[Formula: see text] [Formula: see text]m axial resolution, and a fast imaging rate of 0.05[Formula: see text]s/frame. The system’s interventional imaging capability was demonstrated through real-time visualization of needle morphology and dye diffusion during injections in chicken breast tissue. In summary, the TUT array enables potential applications in real-time multimodal imaging, combining photoacoustic, ultrasound, and optical modalities for comprehensive tissue characterization.