High-contrast FFT acousto-optical tomography of biological tissues with a frequency-chirped modulation of the ultrasound

Although tumors can show important contrast in their optical properties at an early stage of development, they are difficult to image optically due the diffusive nature of biological tissues. Such tumors can also be detected by "classical" ultrasound (US) imaging, but the acoustic constrast is often weak at early stages. Acousto-optical (AO) imaging combines light and ultrasound : light carries the desired information and ultrasound provides the spatial resolution. Based on a previous work made by the group of L.V. Wang, we present AO images obtained with chirped US. This modulation of the US frequency allows to encode a spatial region of the medium in the frequency spectrum of the AO signal. We can then obtain the optical contrast along the US path with improved resolution. The technique was apply to the imaging of buried objects in phantoms and to the vizualization of the "virtual source".