The Acoustic Attenuation of an IEC Agar-based Tissue-Mimicking Material Measured at 12-47 MHz

Chao Sun, University of Edinburgh
Stephen Pye, Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh
Anna Janeczko, Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh
Bill Ellis, Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh
Mark Brewin, Royal London Hospital
Mairead Butler, Royal Londong Hopspital
Vassilis Shoros, University of Edinburgh
Adrian Thomson, University of Edinburgh
Jacinta Browne, Dublin Institute of Technology
Carmel Moran, University of Edinburgh

Document Type Conference Paper

Ultrasonics Symposium (IUS) 2011 IEEE INternational, 18-21 October, 2011, p. 1376-1378.

DOI:10.1109/ULTSYM.2011.0340

Abstract

High frequency ultrasound (>;15 MHz) is used in the fields of pre-clinical, intravascular, ophthalmology and superficial tissue imaging. Tissue-equivalent phantoms have previously been developed to enable relevant quality assurance measurements for frequencies lower than 15MHz but to date limited data is available on the acoustic properties of tissue equivalent material at frequencies higher than 15MHz. In this study, the acoustic attenuation of an International Electromechanical Commission (IEC) agar based tissue mimicking material (TMM) was measured over the frequency range of 12 - 47 MHz at 21 °C ± 1 °C using a broadband substitution technique. By applying a polynomial curve fitting function to the measured data the attenuation (dB·cm^-1) was found to vary with frequency f(MHz) in the form of 0.39 f + 0.0069 f². This result is comparable to the published result at lower frequencies.