The acoustics of diagnostic microbubbles: dissipative effects and heat deposition

We discuss the effectively detectable scattered intensity of ultrasound from diagnostic microbubble suspensions, taking dissipative mechanisms in the liquid medium into account. In particular, we conclude that neither non-linear wave steepening of the incident (driving) wave nor of the outgoing (scattered) wave has a large effect on the scattered signal from typical bubbles. It is shown that, paradoxically, the far-field solution of the wave field is sufficient to compute the magnitude of expected temperature rises in the medium due to acoustic heat deposition, although appreciable heating is limited to intermediate-field distances from the bubble surface.