Dual-frequency chirp imaging for contrast detection

The method of dual-frequency (DF) difference excitation is capable of generating a low-frequency envelope component as the driving force of commercial contrast microbubbles by using a high-frequency pulse. Although the DF difference excitation method provides good lateral resolution in high-frequency contrast imaging, it suffers from degraded axial resolution because a longer-than-usual envelope component is required to induce the oscillation of microbubbles. In this study, a coded excitation technique (i.e. chirp waveform) is combined with the DF difference excitation method (also referred to as the DF chirp excitation method) to improve the axial resolution of contrast imaging while maintaining the impinging insonation energy. B-mode images were constructed to compare the performance of the DF chirp excitation method with the conventional tone-burst pulse method. Results indicate that the proposed DF chirp excitation method can provide better axial resolution after pulse compression. Moreover, as compared to the tone-burst pulse with the same pulse duration, the pulse compression results in a higher signal-to-noise ratio because of the temporal concentration of the received energy. Nevertheless, images with the DF chirp excitation method demonstrated noticeable image artefacts resulting from the range sidelobes. The DF chirp excitation method also produced obvious tissue harmonic generation that could degrade the contrast-to-tissue ratio at higher acoustic pressures.