42 results about "Nonlinear scattering" patented technology

Elastic wave pulse complexes are transmitted towards said region where said pulse complexes are composed of a high frequency (HF) and a low frequency (LF) pulse with the same or overlapping beam directions and where the HF pulse is so close to the LF pulse that it observes the modification of the object by the LF pulse at least for a part of the image depth. Received HF signals are picked up by transducers from scattered and / or transmitted components of the transmitted HF pulses. The received HF signals are processed to form measurement or image signals for display, and combined in slow time to form noise suppressed HF signals or nonlinear scattering HF signals.

New methods of ultrasound imaging are presented that provide images with reduced reverberation noise and images of nonlinear scattering and propagation parameters of the object, and estimation of corrections for wave front aberrations produced by spatial variations in the ultrasound propagation velocity. The methods are based on processing of the received signal from transmitted dual frequency band ultrasound pulse complexes with overlapping high and low frequency pulses. The high frequency pulse is used for the image reconstruction and the low frequency pulse is used to manipulate the nonlinear scattering and / or propagation properties of the high frequency pulse. A 1st method uses the scattered signal from a single dual band pulse complex for filtering in the fast time (depth time) to provide a signal with suppression of reverberation noise and with 1st harmonic sensitivity and increased spatial resolution. In other methods two or more dual band pulse complexes are transmitted where the frequency and / or the phase and / or the amplitude of the low frequency pulse vary for each transmitted pulse complex. Through filtering in the pulse number coordinate and corrections of nonlinear propagation delays and optionally also amplitudes, a linear back scattering signal with suppressed pulse reverberation noise, a nonlinear back scattering signal, and quantitative nonlinear scattering and forward propagation parameters are extracted. The reverberation suppressed signals are further useful for estimation of corrections of wave front aberrations, and especially useful with broad transmit beams for multiple parallel receive beams. Approximate estimates of aberration corrections are given. The nonlinear signal is useful for imaging of differences in tissue properties, such as micro-calcifications, in-growth of fibrous tissue or foam cells, or micro gas bubbles as found with decompression or injected as ultrasound contrast agent.