Three-dimensional quantitative optical measurement of asymmetrically focused ultrasound pressure field

High-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) is used for the treatment of tumors such as prostate cancer. In the development of this technique, an accurate and fast measurement of the HIFU pressure field is important. A hydrophone is generally used for the measurement, but it might disturb the pressure field and scanning it in the field takes a long time. On the other hand, optical ultrasonic field mapping has the advantages of speed and its nature of not by interfering with the acoustic field. In this study, we reconstructed an asymmetric ultrasound field by optical measurement using a computed tomography (CT) algorithm. The asymmetric field was generated by a focused transducer with four elements. Also, the absolute measurement of ultrasonic pressure was checked by measuring the center of the field of the charge-coupled device (CCD) camera. The results showed overall agreement with those of hydrophone measurement.