Light propagation in a turbid medium with insonified microbubbles

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Abstract
Surfactant stabilized microbubbles, with diameters of a few micrometers, are used as clinical contrast agents for ultrasound imaging. While their acoustic properties have been studied extensively,1 their optical properties are less well known. When excited by ultrasound, microbubbles undergo volumetric oscillations and thus within a population their sizes vary both in time and space, as the ultrasound wavefronts pass through them. The optical scattering from an object depends on its size.2 Therefore a microbubble’s optical scattering is expected to change during insonification. Indeed, this property has enabled the application of optical measurement techniques to investigate the sizes of insonified microbubbles and their dynamics.3 It has also been suggested that the size change of insonified microbubbles can be exploited for fluorescence imaging with fluorophore labeled microbubbles.4,5
Funding Information
  • EPSRC (EP/G005036/1)
  • Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/G005036/1)