  Significance: We proposed a new design of hand-held linear-array
photoacoustic (PA) probe which can acquire multi images via motor moving.
Moreover, images from different locations are utilized via imaging fusion for
SNR enhancement. Aim: We devised an adjustable hand-held for the purpose of
realizing different images at diverse location for further image fusion. For
realizing the light spot which is more matched with the Ultrasonic transducer
detection area, we specially design a light adjust unit. Moreover, due to no
displacement among the images, there is no need to execute image register
process. The program execution time be reduced, greatly. Approach: mechanical
design; Montel carol simulation; no-registration image fusion; Spot
compression. Results: Multiple PA images with different optical illumination
areas were acquired. After image fusion, we obtained fused PA images with
higher signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR) and image fidelity than each single PA
image. A quantitative comparison shows that the SNR of fused image is improved
by 36.06% in agar-milk phantom, and 44.69% in chicken breast phantom,
respectively. Conclusions: In this paper, the light scanning adjustable
hand-held PA imaging probe is proposed, which can realize PA imaging with
different illumination positions via adjusting the optical unit.
