Ultrasonic imaging of static objects through an aberrating layer using harmonic phase conjugation approach

• A new technique for ultrasonic imaging of small scattering objects is developed.
• The method is based upon harmonic phase conjugation of ultrasound fields.
• Numerical verification of the suggested method is disclosed.
• Experimental verification of the theory and simulation is reported.
• Application of the proposed technique in biomedical imaging is discussed.

The main goal of this study is to develop a new image reconstruction approach for the ultrasonic detection of small objects (comparable to or smaller than the ultrasonic wavelength) behind an aberrating layer. Instead of conventional pulse-echo experimental setup we used through transmission, as the backscattered field after going twice through the layer becomes much weaker than the through-transmitted field. The proposed solution is based on the Harmonic Phase Conjugation (HPC) technique. The developed numerical model allows to calculate the amplitude and phase distributions of the through-transmitted acoustic field interacting with the objects and received by a linear transducer array either directly or after passing through an additional aberrating layer. Then, the digitized acoustic field received by the array is processed, phase-conjugated, and finally, numerically propagated back through the medium in order to reconstruct the image of the target objects.The reconstruction quality of the algorithm was systematically tested on a numerical model, which included a barrier, a medium behind it, and a group of three scatterers, by varying scatterer distances from the source transducer, their mutual arrangement, and the angle of the incident field. Subsequently, a set of laboratory experiments was conducted (at transmit frequency of 2 MHz) to verify the accuracy of the developed simulation. The results demonstrate feasibility of imaging multiple scattering objects through a barrier using the HPC method with better than 1 mm accuracy. The results of these tests are presented, and the feasibility of implementing this approach for various biomedical and NDT imaging applications is discussed.