Patent ID: 9618445
Date: 2017-04-11
CPC Classifications: G01N

Claim:
1. An optical microscopy system comprising: (a) a pulsed light source configured to emit at least one laser beam; (b) at least one light modulation module configured to modulate in amplitude the at least one laser beam for pure sinusoidal modulation; (c) a focusing device configured to focus the at least one modulated laser beam onto a sample, wherein the sample itself is an endogenous contrast agent or is treated by at least one exogenous contrast agent so as to be excited to generate nonlinear photoacoustic waves in the sample in response to the at least one modulated laser beam; (d) at least one ultrasonic transducer module configured to receive and transform the nonlinear photoacoustic waves into electrical signals and to extract frequency signals within the electrical signals; and (e) a scanning device configured to scan, record, map, and process intensity of the signals received from the at least one ultrasonic transducer module to create images of the sample.