Characterization and modeling of acousto-optic signal strengths in highly scattering media

Journal article, 2019

Ultrasound optical tomography (UOT) is an imaging technique based on the acousto-optic effect that can perform optical imaging with ultrasound resolution inside turbid media, and is thus interesting for biomedical applications, e.g. for assessing tissue blood oxygenation. In this paper, we present near background free measurements of UOT signal strengths using slow light filter signal detection. We carefully analyze each part of our experimental setup and match measured signal strengths with calculations based on diffusion theory. This agreement between experiment and theory allows us to assert the deep tissue imaging potential of similar to 5 cm for UOT of real human tissues predicted by previous theoretical studies [Biomed. Opt. Express 8, 4523 (2017)] with greater confidence, and indicate that future theoretical analysis of optimized UOT systems can be expected to be reliable. (C) 2019 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreement