Miniature fiber scanning probe for flexible forward-view photoacoustic endoscopy

Forward-view photoacoustic (PA) endoscopy (PAE) is promising for achieving noninvasive biopsy in narrow areas of internal organs. However, current schemes that scan the proximal end of fiber bundles' core-by-cores would cause limited spatial sampling confined by the number of cores, which result in lower lateral resolution at smaller probe size. In this paper, a flexible forward-view PAE probe based on a resonant fiber scanner with a diameter of 5 mm was developed, which compactly integrated a piezoelectric (PZT) bender, a fiber cantilever, a lens, an ultrasound transducer, and a coupler inside. Phantom imaging was conducted to evaluate the performance of the flexible forward-view PAE, exhibiting a lateral resolution of 15.6 μm in a field-of-view of approximately 3 mm diameter and the imaging speed is 0.5 frames per second. In vivo imaging shows the clear vascular network of the rat gastrointestinal wall, which demonstrates the feasibility of resonant fiber scanners for photoacoustic endoscopic imaging, and indicates its potential for application as minimally invasive tools in the clinical evaluation of gastrointestinal lesions.