Simulation of laser ultrasonic surface wave dispersion in a multilayered skin model

The need for a sensitive method of the non-destructive evaluation of skin layer properties is highly desirable in a number of medical applications. The use of laser-generated surface acoustic waves (SAW) for the characterisation of multi-layered materials is widely used in industrial applications. In this paper we present research expanding this principle for the use of generated SAW for the characterisation of skin layer properties. The SAW dispersion relations are calculated for finite element simulated SAW displacement waveforms over a range of source-detector separations in three-layered models of human skin. The simulations show that SAWs are extremely sensitive to changes in layer properties and will be able to be utilised to quantitively characterise the layer properties of human skin by the development of an inverse algorithm.