Wang, PuMa, TengSlipchenko, Mikhail N.Liang, ShanshanHui, JieShung, KirkRoy, SukeshSturek, MichaelZhou, QifaChen, ZhongpingCheng, Ji-Xin2015-09-152015-09-152014-11-04Wang, P., Ma, T., Slipchenko, M. N., Liang, S., Hui, J., Shung, K. K., … Cheng, J.-X. (2014). High-speed Intravascular Photoacoustic Imaging of Lipid-laden Atherosclerotic Plaque Enabled by a 2-kHz Barium Nitrite Raman Laser. Scientific Reports, 4, 6889. http://doi.org/10.1038/srep06889https://hdl.handle.net/1805/6907Lipid deposition inside the arterial wall is a key indicator of plaque vulnerability. An intravascular photoacoustic (IVPA) catheter is considered a promising device for quantifying the amount of lipid inside the arterial wall. Thus far, IVPA systems suffered from slow imaging speed (~50 s per frame) due to the lack of a suitable laser source for high-speed excitation of molecular overtone vibrations. Here, we report an improvement in IVPA imaging speed by two orders of magnitude, to 1.0 s per frame, enabled by a custom-built, 2-kHz master oscillator power amplifier (MOPA)-pumped, barium nitrite [Ba(NO3)2] Raman laser. This advancement narrows the gap in translating the IVPA technology to the clinical setting.en-USPublisher PolicyIntravascular photoacoustic cathetersNitrite raman lasersArticle