High-frequency attenuation measurements using an acoustic microscope

An acoustic microscope was used to measure excess attenuation of aqueous solutions of sugars and proteins at 1.0 GHz. Interference pattern spacing and peak amplitude reduction of V(z) curves, obtained with these solutions as the acoustic microscope coupling liquid, were related to the solution wavespeed and attenuation, respectively. Consistent with published results for lower frequencies, solutions with molecular weight greater than 10,000 had a higher specific absorption than those with a molecular weight less than 1000 and within these two molecular weight ranges specific absorption was independent of concentration.     

The effect of acoustic absorber's physical parameters on estimating acoustic intensity in high intensity focused ultrasound field using infrared thermometry

The physical parameters of acoustic absorber play an important role in estimating acoustic intensity in high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) using infrared ...     

超声吸收体物理参数对红外热成像测量高强度聚焦超声声场的影响

超声吸收体的物理参数对利用水听器和红外热成像技术的高强度聚焦超声(High-Intensity Focused Ultrasound,HIFU)声场测量结果具有重要影响。为了探索超声吸收体的物理参数(密度、声速、衰减系数、热扩散系数、定压比热容)对测量结果的影响规律,本文根据层状模型计算出相同声源功率输出时不同物理参数对应的超声吸收体内部声场和热场,利用有限差分法计算出超声吸收体表面在辐照过程中的温度变化;利用基于水听器和红外热成像技术的聚焦声场测量方法测量出焦域内不同位置上声场特征值(轴线声强和-6 dB声束宽度),与通过理论计算得到的声源在纯水中声场特征值进行比较,分析了不同物理参数对测量结果的影响。超声吸收体的声、热学参数中除了声速外,其它物理参数的变化引起声场特征值的测量造成最大相对差异率小于15%。因为声波传播速度的改变会导致超声吸收体内部热场分布变化,使测量结果与理论计算值有较大偏差,其中-6 dB声束宽度和轴线声强最大相对差异率为95.37%和69.97%。因此在选择超声吸收体的声、热学参数时应重点关注声波在吸收体内声速的影响。超声吸收体的声学参数与水的声学参数相近时,可以在焦域内获得较好的测量结果。     

High-frequency acoustic noise of Lake Baikal

High-frequency noise of Lake Baikal is investigated using a submersible self-contained instrument to determine the noise background for the acoustic detection of superhigh-energy neutrinos. It is found that, under stationary and uniform meteorological conditions, the integral noise power in the frequency band 1–50 kHz is virtually independent of depth and is 10–200 mPa or more, depending on the specific conditions. The noise itself contains multiple short pulses of different amplitudes and shapes. Original Russian Text ? V.M. Aĭnutdinov, V.A. Balkanov, I.A. Belolaptikov, L.B. Bezrukov, N.M. Budnev, R.V. Vasil’ev, R. Wischnewski, O.N. Gaponenko, R.Yu. Gnatovskiĭ, O.A. Gress, T.I. Gress, O.G. Grishin, I.A. Danil’chenko, Zh.-A.M. Dzhilkibaev, A.A. Doroshenko, A.N. Dyachok, G.V. Domogatskiĭ, V.A. Zhukov, A.M. Klabukov, A.I. Klimov, S.I. Klimushin, K.V. Konishchev, A.A. Kochanov, A.P. Koshechkin, V.F. Kulepov, L.A. Kuz’michev, B.K. Lubsandorzhiev, T. Mikolajskiĭ, M.B. Milenin, R.R. Mirgazov, S.P. Mikheev, é.A. Osipova, A.I. Panfilov, A.A. Pavlov, G.L. Pan’kov, L.V. Pan’kov, E.N. Pliskovskiĭ, V.A. Poleshchuk, E.G. Popova, P.G. Pokhil, V.V. Prosin, M.I. Rozanov, V.Yu. Rubtsov, B.A. Tarashchanskiĭ, S.V. Fialkovskiĭ, A.G. Chenskiĭ, B.A. Shaĭbonov, Ch. Spiering, O. Streicher, I.V. Yashin, 2006, published in Akusticheskiĭ Zhurnal, 2006, Vol. 52, No. 5, pp. 581–591.     

利用激光多普勒测振仪的空气耦合超声声场测量

针对空气耦合超声信号微弱、难以直接测量的问题,进行了空气耦合超声声场测量的实验研究。使用激光多普勒测振仪测量由声波引起的激光路径上的介质折射率变化,进而得到空气和固体材料内部的时域瞬态声压。通过直接测量空耦换能器的辐射声功率,给出对单个空耦换能器灵敏度的直接评价方法。用空耦换能器激励K9玻璃板的漏兰姆波,观测到空气中的直达波和反射波、固体板内和空气中的漏兰姆波,实现了空气和固体中微弱声波的非侵入式实验测量,为空耦换能器的特性评估和空耦检测系统的声场测量提供了实验方法。     

Doping nanoparticles into polymers and ceramics using ultrasound radiation

In materials science, sonochemistry is mostly used for the fabrication of nanomaterials, but it has also been used for the polymerization of monomers. The current review is aimed at introducing a new application of sonochemistry to materials science, i.e., the doping of nanoparticles into polymers and ceramic bodies. The introduction will present a short overview of sonochemistry, and will outline the advantages of sonochemistry as a tool for fabricating nanomaterials.     

Characterization of high intensity focused ultrasound transducers using acoustic streaming

A new approach for characterizing high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) transducers is presented. The technique is based upon the acoustic streaming field generated by absorption of the HIFU beam in a liquid medium. The streaming field is quantified using digital particle image velocimetry, and a numerical algorithm is employed to compute the acoustic intensity field giving rise to the observed streaming field. The method as presented here is applicable to moderate intensity regimes, above the intensities which may be damaging to conventional hydrophones, but below the levels where nonlinear propagation effects are appreciable. Intensity fields and acoustic powers predicted using the streaming method were found to agree within 10% with measurements obtained using hydrophones and radiation force balances. Besides acoustic intensity fields, the streaming technique may be used to determine other important HIFU parameters, such as beam tilt angle or absorption of the propagation medium.     

Eigenfunction analysis of stochastic backscatter for characterization of acoustic aberration in medical ultrasound imaging

Presented here is a characterization of aberration in medical ultrasound imaging. The characterization is optimal in the sense of maximizing the expected energy in a modified beamformer output of the received acoustic backscatter. Aberration correction based on this characterization takes the form of an aberration correction filter. The situation considered is frequently found in applications when imaging organs through a body wall: aberration is introduced in a layer close to the transducer, and acoustic backscatter from a scattering region behind the body wall is measured at the transducer surface. The scattering region consists of scatterers randomly distributed with very short correlation length compared to the acoustic wavelength of the transmit pulse. The scatterer distribution is therefore assumed to be delta correlated. This paper shows how maximizing the expected energy in a modified beamformer output signal naturally leads to eigenfunctions of a Fredholm integral operator, where the associated kernel function is a spatial correlation function of the received stochastic signal. Aberration characterization and aberration correction are presented for simulated data constructed to mimic aberration introduced by the abdominal wall. The results compare well with what is obtainable using data from a simulated point source.     

Effects of acoustic parameters on bubble cloud dynamics in ultrasound tissue erosion (histotripsy)

High intensity pulsed ultrasound can produce significant mechanical tissue fractionation with sharp boundaries ("histotripsy"). At a tissue-fluid interface, histotripsy produces clearly demarcated tissue erosion and the erosion efficiency depends on pulse parameters. Acoustic cavitation is believed to be the primary mechanism for the histotripsy process. To investigate the physical basis of the dependence of tissue erosion on pulse parameters, an optical method was used to monitor the effects of pulse parameters on the cavitating bubble cloud generated by histotripsy pulses at a tissue-water interface. The pulse parameters studied include pulse duration, peak rarefactional pressure, and pulse repetition frequency (PRF). Results show that the duration of growth and collapse (collapse cycle) of the bubble cloud increased with increasing pulse duration, peak rarefactional pressure, and PRF when the next pulse arrived after the collapse of the previous bubble cloud. When the PRF was too high such that the next pulse arrived before the collapse of the previous bubble cloud, only a portion of histotripsy pulses could effectively create and collapse the bubble cloud. The collapse cycle of the bubble cloud also increased with increasing gas concentration. These results may explain previous in vitro results on effects of pulse parameters on tissue erosion.     

Preliminary investigations of ultrasound induced acoustic streaming using particle image velocimetry

Particle image velocimetry was used to investigate ultrasound-induced acoustic streaming in a system for the enhanced uptake of substances from the aquatic medium into fish. Four distinct regions of the induced streaming in the system were observed and measured. One of the regions was identified as an preferential site for substance uptake, where the highest velocities in proximity to the fish surface were measured. A positive linear relationship was found between the ultrasound intensity and the maximum streaming velocity, where a unitless geometric factor, specific to the system, was calculated for correcting the numerical relationship between the two parameters. The results are part of a comprehensive study aimed at improving mass transdermal administrations of substances (e.g. vaccines, hormones) into fish from the aquatic medium.     

超声波作用下声学参数对悬浮液中微粒凝聚的影响

对利用超声波去除或分离悬液中微小颗粒过程中频率和时均声能密度等声学参数对微粒凝聚的影响作了分析研究。利用前人的数学模型对不同声对比因数下悬浮液中微粒达到平衡状态时所需要的时间及凝聚位置进行了计算。在水模型实验,实验中所施加超声波的频率为24.1kHz,微粒的粒径为0-60um、密度940kg/m^3的高密度聚乙烯,实验液为脱气软化水,实验结果与部分理论分析结果是一致的。     

High-frequency acoustic modes in liquid gallium at the melting point

The microscopic dynamics in liquid gallium at melting has been studied by inelastic x-ray scattering. We demonstrate the existence of acousticlike modes up to wave vectors above one-half of the first maximum of the static structure factor, at variance with earlier results from inelastic neutron scattering [F. J. Bermejo et al., Phys. Rev. E 49, 3133 (1994)]. Despite structural (extremely rich polymorphism) and electronic (mixed valence) peculiarities, the collective dynamics is strikingly similar to the one of van der Waals and metallic fluids. This result speaks in favor of the universality of the short time dynamics in monatomic liquids rather than of system-specific dynamics.     

High-frequency volume and boundary acoustic backscatter fluctuations in shallow water

Volume and boundary acoustic backscatter envelope fluctuations are characterized from data collected by the Toroidal Volume Search Sonar (TVSS), a 68 kHz cylindrical array capable of 360 degrees multibeam imaging in the vertical plane perpendicular to its axis. The data are processed to form acoustic backscatter images of the seafloor, sea surface, and horizontal and vertical planes in the volume, which are used to attribute nonhomogeneous spatial distributions of zooplankton, fish, bubbles and bubble clouds, and multiple boundary interactions to the observed backscatter amplitude statistics. Three component Rayleigh mixture probability distribution functions (PDFs) provided the best fit to the empirical distribution functions of seafloor acoustic backscatter. Sea surface and near-surface volume acoustic backscatter PDFs are better described by Rayleigh mixture or log-normal distributions, with the high density portion of the distributions arising from boundary reverberation, and the tails arising from nonhomogeneously distributed scatterers such as bubbles, fish, and zooplankton. PDF fits to the volume and near-surface acoustic backscatter data are poor compared to PDF fits to the boundary backscatter, suggesting that these data may be better described by mixture distributions with component densities from different parametric families. For active sonar target detection, the results demonstrate that threshold detectors which assume Rayleigh distributed envelope fluctuations will experience significantly higher false alarm rates in shallow water environments which are influenced by near-surface microbubbles, aggregations of zooplankton and fish, and boundary reverberation.     

Impact of acoustic pressure on ambient pressure estimation using ultrasound contrast agent

Local blood pressure measurements provide important information on the state of health of organs in the body and can be used to diagnose diseases in the heart, lungs, and kidneys. This paper presents an approach for investigating the ambient pressure sensitivity of a contrast agent using diagnostic ultrasound. The experimental setup resembles a realistic clinical setup utilizing a single array transducer for transmit and receive. The ambient pressure sensitivity of SonoVue (Bracco, Milano, Italy) was measured twice using two different acoustic driving pressures, which were selected based on a preliminary experiment. To compensate for variations in bubble response and to make the estimates more robust, the relation between the energy of the subharmonic and the fundamental component was chosen as a measure over the subharmonic peak amplitude. The preliminary study revealed the growth stage of the subharmonic component to occur at acoustic driving pressures between 300 and 500 kPa. Based on this, the pressure sensitivity was investigated using a driving pressure of 485 and 500 kPa. At 485 kPa, a linear pressure sensitivity of 0.42 dB/kPa was found having a linear correlation coefficient of 0.94. The second measurement series at 485 kPa showed a sensitivity of 0.41 dB/kPa with a correlation coefficient of 0.89. Based on the measurements at 500 kPa, this acoustic driving pressure was concluded to be too high causing the bubbles to be destroyed. The pressure sensitivity for these two measurement series were 0.42 and 0.25 dB/kPa with linear correlation coefficients of 0.98 and 0.93, respectively.     

High-frequency acoustic emissions generated by a 20 kHz sonochemical horn processor detected using a novel broadband acoustic sensor: a preliminary study

This paper describes the application of a novel broadband acoustic sensor to evaluating the acoustic emissions from cavitation produced by a typical commercial 20 kHz sonochemical horn processor. Investigations of the reproducibility of the processor, and of the variation in cavitation emissions as a function of output setting and sensor location are described, and resulting trends discussed in terms of the broadband integrated power in the megahertz frequency range. Companion studies with a conventional membrane hydrophone have illustrated for the first time that cavitation emissions produced by a sonochemical horn processor can extend to frequencies beyond 20 MHz, and the sensor shows that significant nonlinearity can be seen in measured cavitation activity with increasing nominal output power.     

High-frequency parameters of magnetic films showing magnetization dispersion

Magnetization dispersion leads to skewed resonance curves shifted towards higher magnetizing fields, together with considerable reduction in the resonant absorption, while the FMR line width is considerably increased. These effects increase considerably with frequency, in contrast to films showing magnetic-anisotropy dispersion, where they decrease. It is concluded that there may be anomalies in the frequency dependence of the resonance parameters for polycrystalline magnetic films.Translated from Izvestiya Vysshikh Uchebnykh Zavedenii, Fizika, No. 4, pp. 32–36, April, 1988.     

Mechanical characterization of sintered piezo-electric ceramic material using scanning acoustic microscope

Lead Zirconate Titanate (PZT) is a piezo-electric ceramic material that needs to be characterized for its potential use in microelectronics. Energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDX) is conducted to determine the chemical composition of the PZT ceramics. The scanning electron microscope (SEM) is performed to study the surface morphology, grain structure and grain boundaries. The SEM image helps us to understand the surface wave propagation and scattering phenomena by the PZT and the reason for its anisotropy and inhomogeneity due to the grain structure. In this paper scanning acoustic microscopy at 100 MHz excitation frequency is conducted for determining mechanical properties of PZT. Earlier works reported only the longitudinal wave speed in PZT while in this paper longitudinal, shear and surface acoustic wave speeds of sintered PZT are measured from its acoustic material signature (AMS) curves, also known as V(z) curves. AMS or V(z) curve is the variation of the output voltage as a function of the distance between the acoustic lens focal point and the reflecting surface. The average velocities of longitudinal, shear and surface acoustic waves in a PZT specimen are determined from its V(z) curve generated at 100 MHz excitation frequency and found to be over 5000 m/s, over 3000 m/s and between 2500 and 3000 m/s, respectively. From these velocities all elastic constants of the specimen are obtained.     

Bubble size distribution in acoustic droplet vaporization via dissolution using an ultrasound wide-beam method

Performance and efficiency of numerous cavitation enhanced applications in a wide range of areas depend on the cavitation bubble size distribution. Therefore, cavitation bubble size estimation would be beneficial for biological and industrial applications that rely on cavitation. In this study, an acoustic method using a wide beam with low pressure is proposed to acquire the time intensity curve of the dissolution process for the cavitation bubble population and then determine the bubble size distribution. Dissolution of the cavitation bubbles in saline and in phase-shift nanodroplet emulsion diluted with undegassed or degassed saline was obtained to quantify the effects of pulse duration (PD) and acoustic power (AP) or peak negative pressure (PNP) of focused ultrasound on the size distribution of induced cavitation bubbles. It was found that an increase of PD will induce large bubbles while AP had only a little effect on the mean bubble size in saline. It was also recognized that longer PD and higher PNP increases the proportions of large and small bubbles, respectively, in suspensions of phase-shift nanodroplet emulsions. Moreover, degassing of the suspension tended to bring about smaller mean bubble size than the undegassed suspension. In addition, condensation of cavitation bubble produced in diluted suspension of phase-shift nanodroplet emulsion was involved in the calculation to discuss the effect of bubble condensation in the bubble size estimation in acoustic droplet vaporization. It was shown that calculation without considering the condensation might underestimate the mean bubble size and the calculation with considering the condensation might have more influence over the size distribution of small bubbles, but less effect on that of large bubbles. Without or with considering bubble condensation, the accessible minimum bubble radius was 0.4 or 1.7 μm and the step size was 0.3 μm. This acoustic technique provides an approach to estimate the size distribution of cavitation bubble population in opaque media and might be a promising tool for applications where it is desirable to tune the ultrasound parameters to control the size distribution of cavitation bubbles.     

On-demand regulation and enhancement of the nucleation in acoustic droplet vaporization using dual-frequency focused ultrasound

Acoustic droplet vaporization (ADV) plays an important role in focused ultrasound theranostics. Better understanding of the relationship between the ultrasound parameters and the ADV nucleation could provide an on-demand regulation and enhancement of ADV for improved treatment outcome. In this work, ADV nucleation was performed in a dual-frequency focused ultrasound configuration that consisted of a continuous low-frequency ultrasound and a short high-frequency pulse. The combination was modelled to investigate the effects of the driving frequency and acoustic power on the nucleation rate, efficiency, onset time, and dimensions of the nucleation region. The results showed that the inclusion of short pulsed high-frequency ultrasound significantly increased the nucleation rate with less energy, reduced the nucleation onset time, and changed the length–width ratio of the nucleation region, indicating the dual-frequency ultrasound mode yields an efficient enhancement of the ADV nucleation, compared to a single-frequency ultrasound mode. Furthermore, the acoustic and temperature fields varied independently with the dual-frequency ultrasound parameters. This facilitated the spatial and temporal control over the ADV nucleation, and opens the door to the possibility to realize on-demand regulation of the ADV occurrence in ultrasound theranostics. In addition, the improved energy efficacy that is obtained with the dual-frequency configuration lowered the requirements on hardware system, increasing its flexibility and could facilitate its implementation in practical applications.     

High-frequency response and acoustic phonon contribution of the linear electro-optic effect in DAST

We present a simple method to measure the contribution from acoustic phonons to the linear electro-optic effect. A step voltage with a short rise time (600 ps) is applied to the sample, and the electro-optic response is measured in the time domain. For the organic salt 4-N, N-dimethylamino-4(?)-N(?)-methyl-stilbazolium tosylate (DAST), we obtained a negative contribution of r(a)(111) = -1.0 +/- 0.1 pm/V to the overall electro-optic coefficient of r(111) = 48 +/- 5 pm/V (lambda = 1535 nm). The electro-optic response was limited only by the rise time of the applied voltage, which corresponds to a frequency of 1 GHz.