Theory and nonlinearity of thermoacoustics,Ⅰ. Thermoacoustics

Thermoacoustic phenomena had been discovered early in the history. The develop ment of the related theory and practice is especially vigorous in recent years. The developments of the theory and experiments of thermoacoustics and its state-of arts are reviewed from the point of view of an acoustician

Microwave-induced thermoacoustic elastic imaging:A simulation study

Microwave-induced thermoacoustic imaging(MTI)has the advantages of high resolution,high contrast,non-ionization,and non-invasive.Recently,MTI was used in the¯eld of breast cancer screening.In this paper,based on the¯nite element method(FEM)and COMSOL Multiphysics software,a three-dimensional breast cancer model suitable for exploring the MTI process is proposed to investigate the in°uence of Young's modulus(YM)of breast cancer tissue on MTI.It is found that the process of electromagnetic heating and initial pressure generation of the entire breast tissue is earlier in time than the thermal expansion process.Besides,compared with normal breast tissue,tumor tissue has a greater temperature rise,displacement,and pressure rise.In particular,YM of the tumor is related to the speed of thermal expansion.In particular,the larger the YM of the tumor is,the higher the heating and contraction frequency is,and the greater the maximum pressure is.Di®erent Young's moduli correspond to di®erent thermoacoustic signal spectra.In MTI,this study can be used to judge di®erent degrees of breast cancer based on elastic imaging.In addition,this study is helpful in exploring the possibility of microwave-induced thermoacoustic elastic imaging(MTAE).

Theory and nonlinearity of thermoacoustics:Ⅱ. Nonlinear sound waves in thermoacoustic tubes

Nolilinarity in thermoacoustics mainly comes from asee-amplitude sound waves)which is necessary for the thermoacoustic phenomena. Exact solutions are found for sound waves in a tube, Mathematical tecniques are developed to solve the Riemann equations in cases unsuitable for conventional methods. The tube is characterized by its cross-sectional area and shape, which is reflected in the wave numer in the tube. Exact solutions for different tube configurations are found, includin thermacoustic stacks with temperature gradient. And composite tube containing sections of different characters is sloved, by using the continuity equations of volume velocity and pressure between sections.

Analysis of influencing factors of excitation parameters for magnetoacoustic tomography with current injection

Magneto-acoustic tomography with current injection(MAT-CI) is a type of hybrid imaging;under the excitation of the static magnetic field, the thermoacoustic effect and the Lorentz force effect will exist at the same time. Therefore,the detected signal is a mixed signal generated by the simultaneous action of the two effects, but the influence of excitation parameters on the two effects is different. In this paper, for objects with different conductivity, the proportion of thermoacoustic signal(TA) and magneto-acoustic signal(MA) in the mixed signal is quantitatively analyzed in terms of three aspects: the magnetic induction intensity, pulse excitation and injection current polarity. Experimental and simulation analyses show that the intensity ratio of MA to TA is not affected when the conductivity varies from 0.1 S/m to 1.5 S/m and other conditions remain unchanged. When the amplitude of the pulse excitation and the strength of the magnetic induction are different, the growth rates of MA and TA are different, which has a significant impact on the proportion of the two signals in the mixed signal. At the same time, due to the Lorentz force effect, MA is affected by the polarity of the injected current and the direction of the static magnetic field. The combination of the static magnetic field and the injected current can not only distinguish the two signals in the mixed signal, but also effectively enhance the intensity of the mixed signal and improve the quality of the reconstructed image.

Prospects of microwave-induced thermoacoustic imaging

Microwave-induced thermoacoustic imaging(MTAI)has advantages including the large imaging depth,high imaging resolution,high imaging contrast,and fast imaging speed.The thermoacoustic(TA)group of South China Normal University has dedicated to developing TA imaging for more than a decade and has made many breakthroughs.This review introduces these breakthroughs from two aspects including the improvement in techniques and the exploration of applications.On the technological level,there are ultrashort microwave pulse(USMP)-inducedTA imaging that can improve the imaging resolution,nonlinear thermoacoustic imaging(NTAI)that can improve the imaging contrast,polarized microwave-inducedthermoacoustic imaging(P-MTAI)that can obtain cellular-level alignment information,and more convenient and accurate handheld and multimodal probes.On the application side,the optimization and expansion have been carried out,mainly concentrating on breast and myocardial imaging.Finally,several current research directions are introduced,including the application of P-MTAI on joint imaging and research on whole-body imaging of small animals.

Developing microwave-induced thermoacoustic tomography:System,application,and reconstruction

A microwave-induced thermoacoustic imaging(MITAT)system is a non-destructive physical medical imaging method that combines the advantages of the high contrast of microwave imaging and the high resolution of ultrasound imaging.It uses the microwave as the excitation source and ultrasound as the information carrier.When different kinds of biological tissue absorb electromagnetic energy,it results in localized temperature rises.The thermal expansion will induce ultrasonic signals(i.e.,thermoacoustic signals),known as the thermoacoustic effect.The microwave absorption image of the sample can be reconstructed by algorithm processing.The MITAT contrast depends on different dielectric parameters of different kinds of tissue.We introduce the developed system and its application.In addition,the challenges and prospects of MITAT for further development are discussed.

Microwave-induced thermoacoustic imaging with functional nanoparticles

As an emerging hybrid imaging modality,microwave-induced thermoacoustic imaging(MTAI),using microwaves as the excitation source and ultrasonic signals as the information carrier for combining the characteristics of high contrast of electromagnetic imaging and high resolution of ultrasound imaging,has shown broad prospects in biomedical and clinical applications.The imaging contrast depends on the microwave-absorption coe±cient of the endogenous imaged tissue and the injected MTAI contrast agents.With systemically introduced functional nanoparticles,MTAI contrast and sensitivity can be further improved,and enables visualization of biological processes in vivo.In recent years,functional nanoparticles for MTAI have been developed to improve the performance and application range of MTAI in biomedical applications.This paper reviews the recent progress of functional nanoparticles for MTAI and their biomedical applications.The challenges and future directions of microwave thermoacoustic imaging with functional nanoparticles in theeld of translational medicine are discussed.

Thermoacoustic imaging:From single-element scanning to portable and array-based imaging

The microwave-induced thermoacoustic imaging(TAI)technology has both the advantages of high contrast of microwave imaging and high resolution of ultrasound imaging(UI),so it has carried out exploratory application research in various areas,such as the early detection of breast tumors and cerebrovascular diseases.However,the microwave generator used in the traditional TAI technology is huge and expensive,and the temporal resolution is also too low due to the single-element scanning mechanism.Thus,it is difficult to meet the needs of clinical applications.In this paper,the iterative process and the analysis of related application scenarios from single-element scanning to portable and array-based TAI,such as the miniaturized microwave generator,handheld antenna,multi-channel data acquisition,and UI/TAIdual-modality imaging,are reviewed,and the future trends of this technology are discussed.This review helps researchers in the field of TAI learn the technological development process and future trends.It also deepens clinicians’understanding of TAI so as to put forward more application requirements.

Microwave-induced thermoacoustic imaging of joints

Due to the complexity of joint structures and the diversity of disorders in the joints,the diagnosis of joint diseases is challenging.Current clinical diagnostic techniques for evaluating joint diseases,such as arthritis,have strengths and weaknesses.New imaging techniques need to be developed for the diagnosis or auxiliary diagnosis of arthritis.As an emerging nonintrusive low-cost imaging method,microwave-induced thermoacoustic imaging(TAI)can present tissue morphology while providing the tissue microwave energy absorption density distribution related to dielectric properties.TAI is currently in development to potentially visualize joint anatomic structures and to detect arthritis.Here,we offer a mini review to summarize the status of research on TAI of joints and present an outlook to the future development of TAI in the detection of joint diseases.

Biomedical microwave-induced thermoacoustic imaging

Microwave induced thermoacoustic imaging(MTAI)has emerged as a potential biomedical imaging modality with over 20-year growth.MTAI typically employs pulsed microwave as the pumping source,and detects the microwave-induced ultrasound wave via acoustic transducers.Therefore,it features high acoustic resolution,rich elect romagnetic contrast,and large imaging depth.Benefiting from these unique advantages,MTAI has been extensively applied to various fields including pathology,biology,material and medicine.Till now,MTAI has been deployed for a wide range of biomedical applications,including cancer diagnosis,joint evaluation,brain in-vestigation and endoscopy.This paper provides a comprehensive review on(1)essential physics(endogenous/exogenous contrast mechanisms,penetration depth and resolution),(2)hardware configurations and software implementations(excit ation source,antenna,ultrasound detector and image recovery algorithm),(3)animal studies and clinical applications,and(4)future directions.

A review of microwave-induced thermoacoustic imaging:Excitation source,data acquisition system and biomedical applications

Microwave-induced thermoacoustic imaging(TAI)is a noninvasive modality based on the differences in microwave absorption of various biological tissues.TAI has been extensively researched in recent years,and several studies have revealed that TAI possesses advantages such as high resolution,high contrast,high imaging depth and fast imaging speed.In this paper,we reviewed the development of the TAI technique,its excitation source,data acquisition system and biomedical applications.It is believed that TAI has great potential applications in biomedical research and clinical study.

Thermoacoustic tomography of in vivo rat brain

We present for the¯rst time in vivo imaging of rat brain using microwave-induced thermoacoustic tomography(TAT).The in vivo imaging of rat brain was realized through an unconventional delivery of microwave energy from the front of rat brain(while the transducer was scanned along coronal plane of the animal brain),which maximized the microwave penetration into the brain.In addition,we found that the imaging contrast was highly dependent on the direction of the electric¯eld polarization(EFP)and that more tissue structures/compositions could be revealed when both X-and Y-EFPs were used for TAT.The in vivo TAT images of rat brain obtained were compared with the 3.0 T MRI images and histological photographs,and numerous important brain anatomical structures were identi¯ed.An example of our TAT approach for imaging a foreign object embedded in a rat brain was also demonstrated.This study suggests that TAT has a great potential to be used in neuroscience studies and in noninvasive imaging of brain disorders.

Investigation on porous frequency of regenerator of microminiature thermoacoustic refrigerator

A new method was proposed to directly measure the effective resistance and distinguish the porous frequency in the regenerator of the microminiature thermoacoustic refrigerator. Measured results were compared with the flux gain factor and transmission loss of the real system. The results show that the agreement between the range of the porous frequency and frequency of the system is good, the method can be used to predict the porous frequency of the regenerator in production.

Simulation of thermoacoustic waves by a pressure-based algorithm for compressible flows

A modified SIMPLEC method which can solve compressible flows at low Mach number is introduced and used to study thermoacoustic waves induced by a rapid change of temperature at a solid wall and alternating- direction flows generated by thermoacoustic effects in a ta- pered resonator. The results indicate that the algorithm adopted in this paper can be used for calculating com- pressible flows and thermoacoustic waves. It is found that the pressure and velocity in the resonator behave as stand- ing waves, and the tapered resonator can suppress high- frequency harmonic waves as observed in a cylindrical res- onator.

Development and Assessment of Thermoacoustic Generators Operating by Waste Heat from Cooking Stove

This paper presents the development and assessment of two low-cost, travelling wave, thermoacoustic generators operating by waste heat energy from cooking stove. One powered by waste heat from a propane-driven stove, the other powered by waste heat from a wood-burning stove. The propane-driven thermoacoustic generator was successfully demonstrated to produce approximately 15 watts of electricity using a commercial audio loudspeaker. The wood-burning thermoacoustic generator was successfully constructed and tested to generate a maximum of 22.7 watts of electricity under a pressurised condition. The latter has a high potential to be used by over 1.5 billion people in rural communities for applications such as LED lighting, charging mobile phones or charging a 12V battery. A comprehensive power assessment of the propane-driving generator as well as the development and performance assessment of the wood-burning generator are described throughout this article.

Synthetical optimization of the structure dimension for the thermoacoustic regenerator

The quantitative investigation of parameters in the renegerator is essential for the optimization of thermoacoustic devices, while the majority of the previous research only considered parameters of the working field, working gas and the hydraulic radius. Based on the linear thermoacoustic theory, this paper extracts a normalized parameter for low-amplitude conditions, which is called the regenerator operation factor. By extracting the regenerator operation factor and relative hydraulic radius, the influence of frequency on the efficiency can be controlled and offset. It can be found that thermoacoustic devices with different frequencies can perform the same efficiency by adjusting the radius in proportion to the axial length.Finally, this paper synthetically optimizes the dimension of the thermoacoustic regenerator by taking the regenerator operation factor, relative hydraulic radius and acoustic field parameter as variables. Conclusions in this paper are of great significance for explaining the best working conditions of engines and directing the miniaturization and optimal design of thermoacoustic devices.

Thermoacoustic-reflected focusing lens based on acoustic Bessel-like beam with phase manipulation

We report the realization of broadband reflected acoustic focusing lenses based on thermoacoustic phased arrays of Bessel-like beams, in which the units of phase manipulation are composed of three rigid insulated boundaries and a thermal insulation film in air with different temperatures. Based on these units, we realize a reflected focusing lens which can focus reflected acoustic energy on a line, and its fractional bandwidth can reach about 0.29. In addition, we discuss the influences of the base angle of Bessel-like beam, the number of basic unit, and the variation of unit temperature on focusing performances in details. Furthermore, the reflected focusing lens for the cylindrical acoustic wave based on the Bessel-like beam is also demonstrated. The proposed focusing lens has the advantages of a broad working bandwidth, large focus size,and high robustness, which may provide possibilities for the design and application of acoustic lenses.

Deep learning for image reconstruction in thermoacoustic tomography

Microwave-induced thermoacoustic tomography(TAT)is a rapidly-developing noninvasive imaging technique that integrates the advantages of microwave imaging and ultrasound imaging.While an image reconstruction algorithm is critical for the TAT,current reconstruction methods often creates significant artifacts and are computationally costly.In this work,we propose a deep learning-based end-to-end image reconstruction method to achieve the direct reconstruction from the sinogram data to the initial pressure density image.We design a new network architecture TAT-Net to transfer the sinogram domain to the image domain with high accuracy.For the scenarios where realistic training data are scarce or unavailable,we use the finite element method(FEM)to generate synthetic data where the domain gap between the synthetic and realistic data is resolved through the signal processing method.The TAT-Net trained with synthetic data is evaluated through both simulations and phantom experiments and achieves competitive performance in artifact removal and robustness.Compared with other state-of-the-art reconstruction methods,the TAT-Net method can reduce the root mean square error to 0.0143,and increase the structure similarity and peak signal-to-noise ratio to 0.988 and 38.64,respectively.The results obtained indicate that the TAT-Net has great potential applications in improving image reconstruction quality and fast quantitative reconstruction.

In vivo tumor detection with com bined MR-Photoacoustic-Thermoacoustic imaging

Here,we report a new method using combined magnetic resonance(MR)-Photoacoustic(PA)-Thermoacoustic(TA)imaging techmiques,and demonstrate its unique ability for in vrivo cancer detection using tumor-bearing mice.Circular scanning TA and PA imaging systems were used to recover the dielectric and optical property dist ributions of three colon carcinoma bearing mice While a 7.0-T magnetic resonance imaging(MRI)unit with a mouse body volume coil was utilized for high resolution structural imaging of the same mice.Three plastic tubes flled with soybean sauce were used as fiducial markers for the co-registration of MR,PA and TA images.The resulting fused images provided both enhanced tumor margin and contrast relative to the surrounding normal tissues.In particular,some finger-like protrusions extending into the surrounding tissues were revealed in the MR/TA infused images.These results show that the tissue functional optical and dielectric properties provided by PA and TA images along with the anatomical structure by MRI in one picture make accurate tumor identification easier.This combined MR-PA-TA-imaging strategy has the potential to offer a dinically useful triple-modality tool for accurate cancer detection and for intraoper ative surgical navigation.

Investigation of artifacts by mapping SAR in thermoacoustic imaging

Microwave-induced thermoacoustic imaging(MI-TAI)remains one of the focus of attention among biomedical imaging modalities over the last decade.However,the transmission and dis-tribution of microwave inside bio-tissues are complicated,thus result in severe artifacts.In this study,to reveal the underlying mechanisms of artifacts,we deeply investigate the distribution of specific absorption rate(SAR)inside tissue-mimicking phantoms with varied morphological features using both mathematical simulations and corresponding experiments.Our simulated results,which are confirmed by the associated experimental results,show that the SAR distri-bution highly depends on the geometries of the imaging targets and the polarizing features of the microwave.In addition,we propose the potential mechanisms including Mie-scattering,Fabry-Perot-feature,small curvature effect to interpret the diffraction effect in different scenarios,which may provide basic guidance to predict and distinguish the artifacts for TAI in both fundamental and clinical studies.