Simultaneous reconstruction of acoustic and optical properties of heterogeneous media by quantitative photoacoustic tomography

We report on experimental demonstration of photoacoustic tomography for simultaneous recovery of the optical and acoustic properties of heterogeneous media. Photoacoustic images are reconstructed from a series of tissue-like phantom experiments using a finite element-based reconstruction algorithm coupled with a scanning photoacoustic imaging system. The results show that the images obtained are quantitative in terms of the shape, size, location and optical and acoustic properties of the heterogeneities examined. (c) 2006 Optical Society of America.