Influence of the size,geometry and temporal response of the finite piezoelectric sensor on the photoacoustic signal: the case of the point-like source

Most photoacoustic (PA) work assumes a point-like detection of generated pressure waves; this assumption results in important differences between predicted and experimental signals, as shown in this paper. We used the geometry of a real sensor in the theoretical signal generation through the discretization of the sensing surface, considering each element as a point-like sensor. We modeled the interaction between the wavefront and the real sensor, starting from a well-known PA pressure relation for a point-like source and punctual detection. We obtained the electrical response of the real sensor experimentally and modeled it as a summation of Gaussian functions. The impulse response was convolved with the total PA pressure to obtain the theoretical PA signal. We analyzed the dependence of the source-sensor distance on the discretization size. Then the predicted signal and experimental data were compared for two different frequency response transducers. We found differences in shape and temporal width of simulated PA signals for point-like-source/punctual-detection model and for point-like-source/finite-sensor model.