Main Equipment:
Ultrasound scanners:
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Three fully programmable digital ultrasound systems (Verasonics, Vantage 256 and two Vantage 128 Ultrasound Engine, Redmond, WA), high frequency options.
Verasonics systems provide unique opportunities for research including full access to transmit and receive procedures and capability to program them. Most importantly, it provides a unique opportunity of access to raw radiofrequency (RF) channel data, which enables us to develop custom-built procedures. Some of the key features of the Verasonics vantage system which is essential for our proposed research include: Ultra-fast imaging using “plane wave” transmit, fast data acquisition ability (up to 14,000 frames/second) into buffer memory, Rapid RF signal data transfer to host computer (6.6 GB/s), availability of two trigger inputs and one trigger output for synchronizing, and compatibility with various types of transducers. The extended burst (Acoustic Radiation Force) module is also enabled on this system, making it suitable for shear weave elastography imaging. The system is also equipped with a universal adaptor module enabling us to interface it to different types of transducers.
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A 256-channel low-frequency (16 MHz sampling frequency) ultrasound acquisition system for breast tomography (programmable transmit and receive). The system is equipped with ring-shaped ultrasonic transducers.
Ultrasound transducers:
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Clinical transducers:
Verasonics systems are equipped with three types of probes including a linear array ultrasound transducer (ATL L7-4 x2) operating at 4-7 MHz, broadband linear array ultrasound transducer (ATL L11-4v) operating at 4-11 MHz, and C9-5ICT, broadband curved array endovaginal ultrasound transducer (ATL C9-5ICT), and a phased-array endoscopic transducer (Siemens AcuNav).
Hi frequency transducers:
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L35-16 high frequency transducer for small animal imaging
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Two solid state ring-shape US transducer (256 and 512 elements) at: 1) 1.5 MHz; 2) 3 MHz center frequency.
Lasers and optics: We have three tunable photoacoustic (nanoseconds) lasers:
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SpectraPhysics PRO 270/VerasScan HE
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OPOTEK Phocus Mobile system
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OPOTEK Phocus Core system
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Quantel Big-sky Nd:YAG pump laser (532 and 1064 nm)
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Lumics CW, 1470 nm CW laser
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One Spectra Physics VGEN-G-20 laser (Single wavelength (green) and high rep rate)
Other optical components include Ophir power meter, spectrometer, fiber bundles, optical fiber polishing tools, matching optics including lenses and mirrors, two optical breadboard, Fast photodiodes, CW therapy laser (1470 nm), one vibration-controlled and one regular optical table.
Computational tools (computers and software):
We have 6 powerful computers for data processing and analysis (2 Intel Xeon 12-core 2.5 Ghz Turbo, 16 GB RAM, 256 GB SSD, 1TB 7,200 RPM HD; and 2 Alienware Aurora R7 - 8th Gen Intel Core i7 - 16GB Memory - 2TB Hard Drive +Intel Optane - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 8GB GDDR5X) as well as required software for data analysis and image analysis such as MATLAB, Trace-Pro, and Zemax.
Other facility:
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Other facilities include an equipped facility for making various types of tissue mimicking phantoms, as well as a fully equipped electronics lab for building necessary peripherals for the system. This includes vacuum oven, hot and steering plates, etc.
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3D printer
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Machine shop facility
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UV-VIS spectrometer
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CCD camera for fluorescence imaging.
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Fiber polishing machine
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CIRS ultrasound calibration phantom
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SynDaver tissue mimicking phantoms
Space: Mehrmohammadi’s lab is divided into four main spaces:
State of the art development lab located at University of Rochester Medical Center includes four experimental labs (1200 ft2 including a separate compartment for phantom making area) equipped with optical tables, electronic assembly station, and basic research equipment including digital oscilloscopes, function/arbitrary waveform generators, and multiple system power supplies. Fully equipped offices are available for every student. A variety of commercial software is available on workstations, including various compilers and computer aided design packages. MATLAB (Mathworks, Inc.) is a high-performance numeric computation and visualization package integrating numerical analysis, matrix computation, and signal processing and easy-to-use graphics. LabVIEW (National Instruments, Inc.) is a revolutionary single graphical development environment with built-in functionality for data acquisition, instrument control, measurement analysis, and data presentation. Machining and assembly facilities are also available through the shared facilities of the Department of Imaging Sciences.