Carbon Nanomaterials for Bioimaging, Bioanalysis, and Therapy

7 Photoacoustic Imaging with Carbon Nanomaterials

Seunghyun Lee Donghyun Lee and Chulhong Kim

Pohang University of Science and Technology, Department of Creative IT Engineering, Republic of Korea

Chapter Summary

Photoacoustic imaging is a novel, noninvasive biomedical imaging modality that has evolved considerably over the last few decades. As a label‐free imaging modality using both endogenous and exogenous contrast agent it has shown many advantages to safely and effectively differentiate diseased tissue from healthy tissues at a deeper depth. While endogenous light‐absorbing objects in living subjects such as hemoglobin, melanin, and glucose, have been useful in imaging, the use of exogenous contrast agents can improve the detection sensitivity and specific tissue‐targeting capabilities of photoacoustic imaging modality further. The carbon nanomaterial has been found to be one of the best contrast agents for photoacoustic imaging, which has strong absorption properties and great biocompatibility. This chapter covers the basic introduction of photoacoustic imaging and the application of carbon nanomaterials contrast agent such as imaging‐guided therapy and multimodal imaging in photoacoustic imaging.

7.1 Introduction

In the field of biomedical imaging, high‐resolution volumetric optical imaging techniques have an important role in the diagnosis and treatment of diseases. However, due to strong photon scattering in a tissue, the penetration depth of these optical ...