Photoacoustics

《开放存取光声学杂志》(PACS)的目的是发表在快速发展的光声学(光声学)和热声学领域的原创研究和综述，利用光和电磁激发的声学和热现象来可视化和表征各种材料和生物组织，包括生物体。虽然光谱和光热的一些应用已经达到了成熟的状态，但其他许多研究方向也经历了爆炸式的增长，尤其是生物医学光声学，目前被认为是增长最快的生物成像方式。大量的调查主题清楚地表明，这个领域已经为基础研究和应用研究开发了广泛的工具。激光技术、超声检测方法、逆理论和快速重建算法的发展为这一巨大的进展提供了有力的支持。这一进展还受到大量未得到满足的生物学和医学需求的推动，这些需求可以通过光声学(光声学)方法的独特对比机制来解决。这些包括血管系统的临床前研究和临床成像，组织和疾病生理学，药物疗效和治疗监测，光学解剖学和分子成像使用荧光色素，色素团和纳米颗粒。相应的应用范围涵盖了生物学和医学成像的整个领域，包括癌症、心血管疾病、神经成像、眼科或免疫学成像、糖尿病和肥胖症、细胞转运应用以及许多其他生物学功能。光声学和热声学的多学科性质也体现在化学和纳米技术的不断发展上，从纳米颗粒和有机染料到靶向试剂和基因表达标记，各种新型对比材料和试剂不断得到发展。

The aim of the open access Photoacoustics journal (PACS) is to publish original research and review contributions within the fast growing field of photoacoustics (optoacoustics) and thermoacoustics, which exploits optically and electromagnetically excited acoustical and thermal phenomena for visualization and characterization of a variety of materials and biological tissues, including living organisms. While some of the spectroscopic and photothermal applications have reached a mature state, many other research directions experience an explosive growth, in particular biomedical photoacoustics, which is currently considered the fastest growing bio-imaging modality. The wealth of investigated topics clearly indicates that this field has developed a broad range of tools for fundamental and applied research. The enormous recent progress is greatly supported by the advances in laser technologies, ultrasound detection approaches, development of inverse theory and fast reconstruction algorithms. This progress is also driven by a large number of unmet biological and medical needs that can be addressed by the unique contrast mechanisms available to photoacoustic (optoacoustic) methods. These include pre-clinical research and clinical imaging of vasculature, tissue and disease physiology, drug efficacy and treatment monitoring, optical anatomy and molecular imaging employing fluorochromes, chromophores and nanoparticles. Correspondingly applications span the entire range of biological and medical imaging including cancer, cardiovascular diseases, neuroimaging, ophthalmology or imaging in immunology, diabetes and obesity, cell trafficking application and a multitude of other biological functions. The multi-disciplinarily nature of photoacoustics and thermoacoustics is also evinced by the growing contribution from chemistry and nanotechnology where a multitude of novel contrast materials and agents have been constantly developed, from nanoparticles and organic dyes, to targeted agents and genetically expressed markers.