Recently, piezoelectric transparent ultrasound transducers (TUTs) have gained the attention of the photoacoustic imaging community. The ability to illuminate living subjects through the TUT and minimal acoustic coupling requirements allows for miniaturization, reduces cost, and increases the ease of multimodal integrations. TUTs, therefore, have great potential for photoacoustic imaging; however, challenges remain on matching their acoustic sensitivity to conventional opaque piezoelectric transducers. Various noise sources arising from TUT fabrication and electronics limit their sensitivity. This paper discusses various TUT-specific noise considerations that are detrimental to signal to noise ratio. We also assess the effect of different design considerations by comparing different TUTs. The results can help optimize TUTs design for improving performance, thus paving the way for powerful TUT based photoacoustic applications.
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