Photoacoustic Spectrum Analysis for Microstructure Characterization in Biological Tissue: Analytical Model

Photoacoustic spectrum (PA) analysis (PASA) has been found to have the ability to identify the microstructures in phantoms and biological tissues. PASA adopts the procedures in ultrasound spectrum analysis, although the signal generation mechanisms related to ultrasound backscatter and PA wave generation differ. The purpose of this study was to theoretically validate PASA. The analytical solution to the power spectrum of PA signals generated by identical microspheres following discrete uniform random distribution in space was derived. The simulation and experiment validation of the analytical solution include: (i) the power spectrum profile of a single microsphere with a diameter of 300 μm, and (ii) the PASA parameters of the PA signals generated by randomly distributed microspheres 100, 200, 300, 400 and 500 μm in diameter, at concentrations of 30, 60, 120, 240, 480 per 1.53 cm3 in the observation range 0.5-13 MHz.