Minimally Invasive Optical Photoacoustic Endoscopy with a Single Waveguide for Light and Sound

An endoscopic device for photoacoustic imaging, including a multimode optical fiber having a distal end and a proximal end, a light source to provide a light beam to the proximal end of the multimode optical fiber, a transducer to capture acoustic waves that are emitted from the proximal end of the multimode optical fiber, and a processing device to generate a photoacoustic image based on data from the captured acoustic waves captured by the transducer, wherein the distal end of the multimode optical fiber is configured to be inserted into a sample, the sample generating the acoustic waves by a photoacoustic effect.