The constraints imposed by the laser safety (maximum permissible exposure) ceiling on pump laser energy and the strong attenuation of thermal-wave signals in tissues significantly limit the photothermally active depth in most biological specimens to a level which is normally insufficient for practical applications (a few mm below the skin surface). A theoretical approach for improvement of the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), minimizing the static (dc) component of the photothermal (PT) signal and making use of the PT radiometric nonlinearity has been introduced. At low frequencies fixed-pulse-width chirps of large peak power were found to be superior to all other equal energy modalities, with an SNR improvement by up to two orders of magnitude. Compared to radar peak delay and amplitude, the long-delayed radar output amplitude is found to be more sensitive to subsurface conditions. Two-dimensional spatial plots of this parameter depicting the back-surface conditions of bones with and without fat tissue overlayers are presented. Pulsed-chirp radar thermography has been demonstrated to monitor the degree of demineralization in goat rib bone with a substantial SNR and spatial resolution that is not practicable with harmonic radars of the same energy density.