Microwave-induced thermoacoustic microscopy based on short-pulse microwave and high-frequency point-focused ultrasonic transducer.

Background: As an emerging hybrid imaging modality, microwave-induced thermoacoustic imaging (MITAI) provides high contrast and deep tissue penetration, and has been extensively applied in cancer diagnosis, arthritis detection, and brain research. However, the previous studies had a limited spatial resolution of about 0.45-1.