Quantitative photoacoustic tomography: Recovery of optical absorption coefficient maps of heterogeneous media

We report on experimental. demonstration of photoacoustic tomography for reconstructing the optical absorption coefficient images of heterogeneous media. Photoacoustic images are obtained from a series of tissuelike phantom experiments using a finite element-based reconstruction algorithm coupled with a scanning photoacoustic imaging system. The experimental results show that optical absorption images can be quantitatively reconstructed when the photon diffusion model is coupled with the Helmholtz photoacoustic wave equation. (c) 2006 American Institute of Physics.