Spatially varying optical and acoustic property reconstruction using finite-element-based photoacoustic tomography

A finite-element reconstruction algorithm for simultaneous reconstruction of both optical and acoustic properties of heterogeneous media is presented. The algorithm is based on the Helmholtz-like photoacoustic wave equation in the frequency domain. A dual meshing scheme is described and an adjoint sensitivity method is adopted for efficient inverse computation. The algorithm is implemented with the second-order absorbing boundary conditions and with a multireceiving and multifrequency strategy. The algorithm is evaluated using simulated data under various practical cases including different noise levels, varied range of receiving frequency, different contrast levels between the heterogeneity and background region, and multiple targets. The effect of acoustic heterogeneity on conventional pure optical absorption reconstruction is also studied. (c) 2006 Optical Society of America.