Characterization of ultrasound contrast agent oscillations

Ultrasound contrast agents consist of a gas bubble surrounded by a shell, and are used in studies of tissue perfusion. It is currently difficult to differentiate contrast agent echoes from nonlinear components of tissue echoes. A goal of this research is to improve the understanding of individual contrast agent oscillations and the resulting received echoes. This, in turn, can lead to more sophisticated bubble detection techniques by designing pulsing schemes to elicit a specific bubble response. In this study, experimental and theoretical tools are uniquely combined to aid in the understanding of a bubble’s response during insonation. A model is used for comparison, which is based on the equation developed by Rayleigh for an unencapsulated bubble, with additional terms to include the effects of shell elasticity and viscosity. The resulting radius‐time curves are validated by direct comparison with the experimental results from a high‐speed optical system capable of 100 million frames/s. One resulting sig...