Quantitative measurement of high intensity focused ultrasound pressure field by optical phase contrast method applying non-continuous phase unwrapping algorithm

Abstract

A fast and accurate ultrasound pressure field measurement is necessary for the progress of ultrasound application in medicine. In general, a hydrophone is used to measure the ultrasound field, which takes a long measurement time and might disturb the ultrasound field. Hence, we proposed a new method categorized in an optical method called Phase Contrast method to overcome the drawback in the hydrophone method. The proposed method makes use of the spatial DC spectrum formed in the focal plane to measure the modulated optical phase induced by ultrasound propagation in water. In this study, we take into account the decreased intensity of the DC spectrum at high ultrasound intensity to increase the measurement accuracy of the modulated optical phase. Then, we apply a non-continuous phase unwrapping algorithm to unwrap the modulated optical phase at high ultrasound intensity. From, the unwrapped result, we evaluate the quantitativeness of the proposed method.