Dear Sir,
It has been mentioned that the resolution of Ultrasound imaging techniques(~0.3mm) is better than that of optical imaging techniques (5mm) (although light waves have higher frequency than US)
[Reference: Biomedical Optics- Lihong V. Wang and Hsin-I Wu] .
What is the physical/mathematical explanation for this???
Thank you.
Regards
Prabodh
Hi Prabodh,
It depends on the depth of the imaging target in tissue. Lots of very high-resolution optical imaging techniques exist, however, these rely on ballistic photons, so only work to a depth related to the photon transport mean free path (~1mm in tissue). Beyond this depth, purely optical techniques must rely on diffusive photons, and so the resolution is poor, particularly in relation to ultrasound where the scattering is much weaker. There are lots of review papers on photoacoustics that discuss this if you would like more details.
Brad.
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