{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,27]],"date-time":"2026-05-27T13:11:06Z","timestamp":1779887466708,"version":"3.53.1"},"reference-count":50,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"3","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2020,1,30]],"date-time":"2020-01-30T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1580342400000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"Jiangsu Provincial Key Research and Development Plan","award":["BE2017601"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["BE2017601"]}]},{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100012166","name":"National Key Research and Development Program","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["2018YFC0116201"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["2018YFC0116201"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100012166","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"name":"National Science Fundation of China","award":["11704397"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["11704397"]}]},{"name":"Social Development Program of Jiangsu Province","award":["BE2017674"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["BE2017674"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Sensors"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Photoacoustic (PA) imaging is a hybrid imaging technique that can provide both structural and functional information of biological tissues. Due to limited permissible laser energy deposited on tissues, highly sensitive PA imaging is required. Here, we developed a 20 MHz lead zirconium titanate (PZT) transducer (1.5 mm \u00d7 3 mm) with front-end amplifier circuits for local signal processing to achieve sensitivity enhanced PA imaging. The electrical and acoustic performance was characterized. Experiments on phantoms and chicken breast tissue were conducted to validate the imaging performance. The fabricated prototype shows a bandwidth of 63% and achieves a noise equivalent pressure (NEP) of 0.24 mPa\/\u221aHz and a receiving sensitivity of 62.1 \u03bcV\/Pa at 20 MHz without degradation of the bandwidth. PA imaging of wire phantoms demonstrates that the prototype is capable of improving the detection sensitivity by 10 dB compared with the traditional transducer without integrated amplifier. In addition, in vitro experiments on chicken breast tissue show that structures could be imaged with enhanced contrast using the prototype and the imaging depth range was improved by 1 mm. These results demonstrate that the transducer with an integrated front-end amplifier enables highly sensitive PA imaging with improved penetration depth. The proposed method holds the potential for visualization of deep tissue structures and enhanced detection of weak physiological changes.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/s20030766","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2020,1,31]],"date-time":"2020-01-31T05:55:46Z","timestamp":1580450146000},"page":"766","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":8,"title":["Sensitivity Enhanced Photoacoustic Imaging Using a High-Frequency PZT Transducer with an Integrated Front-End Amplifier"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"20","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-9463-9232","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Chen","family":"Yang","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China"},{"name":"Suzhou Institute of Biomedical Engineering and Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Suzhou 215163, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Xiaohua","family":"Jian","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Suzhou Institute of Biomedical Engineering and Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Suzhou 215163, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Xinle","family":"Zhu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Suzhou Institute of Biomedical Engineering and Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Suzhou 215163, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Jiabing","family":"Lv","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Suzhou Institute of Biomedical Engineering and Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Suzhou 215163, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-5801-0496","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Yang","family":"Jiao","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Suzhou Institute of Biomedical Engineering and Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Suzhou 215163, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Zhile","family":"Han","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Suzhou Institute of Biomedical Engineering and Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Suzhou 215163, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Antonios","family":"Stylogiannis","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Institute of Biological and Medical Imaging, Helmholtz Zentrum M\u00fcnchen, 85764 Neuherberg, Germany"},{"name":"Chair for Biological Imaging, Technische Universit\u00e4t M\u00fcnchen, 81675 Munich, Germany"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Vasilis","family":"Ntziachristos","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Institute of Biological and Medical Imaging, Helmholtz Zentrum M\u00fcnchen, 85764 Neuherberg, Germany"},{"name":"Chair for Biological Imaging, Technische Universit\u00e4t M\u00fcnchen, 81675 Munich, Germany"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"George","family":"Sergiadis","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Suzhou Institute of Biomedical Engineering and Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Suzhou 215163, China"},{"name":"Institute of Biological and Medical Imaging, Helmholtz Zentrum M\u00fcnchen, 85764 Neuherberg, Germany"},{"name":"School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Aristotle University, 54124 Thessaloniki, Greece"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-2432-9225","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Yaoyao","family":"Cui","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Suzhou Institute of Biomedical Engineering and Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Suzhou 215163, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2020,1,30]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"603","DOI":"10.1038\/nmeth.1483","article-title":"Going deeper than microscopy: the optical imaging frontier in biology","volume":"7","author":"Ntziachristos","year":"2010","journal-title":"Nat. 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