Figure 1.

Imaging setup of the elastography system. The aorta sample (S) is placed between a compliant layer (CL), which is used to measure stress, and a padding layer (PL), which is used to more evenly distribute the compressive load applied to the sample. The sample layer assembly is preloaded against a rigid glass window (W) by translating a piezoelectric actuator (A), which is also used to apply step-wise micro-scale compressive loading during imaging. The objective (O) is used to focus the Bessel beam (BB) into the sample and collect the Gaussian component of the backscattered beam (GB) from the sample. The scale bar represents 300 μm. To see this figure in color, go online.