Abstract

We developed a confocal acoustic radiation force (ARF) associated optical coherence elastography (OCE) system using a phase-resolved method to evaluate the mechanical properties of the artery tissue. We used a ring ultrasound transducer to generate an ARF as an internally localised vibrator to induce the motions of the tissue, which were detected by measuring the motion-induced phase changes to resolve the tissue deformations. We performed experiments both in phantoms and human coronary arteries in vitro. The atherosclerosis was visible in the OCE image, but not obviously in the OCT image. The results verified that our ARF-OCE system has great potential to measure the mechanical properties of the artery tissue.

© 2014 Optical Society of America