Abstract
We present an adaptation of the pixel-reassignment technique from confocal fluorescent microscopy to coherent ultrasound imaging. The method, ultrasound pixel-reassignment (UPR), provides a resolution and signal to noise (SNR) improvement in ultrasound imaging by computationally reassigning off-focus signals acquired using traditional plane wave compounding ultrasonography. We theoretically analyze the analogy between the optical and ultrasound implementations of pixel reassignment and experimentally evaluate the imaging quality on tissue-mimicking acoustic phantoms. We demonstrate that UPR provides a 25% resolution improvement and a 3 dB SNR improvement in in vitro scans without any change in hardware or acquisition schemes.
Original language | American English |
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Article number | 123701 |
Journal | Applied Physics Letters |
Volume | 119 |
Issue number | 12 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 20 Sep 2021 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:This work has received funding from the Israel Science Foundation (Grant No. 1361/18), the European Research Council (ERC) Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (No. 677909), and was supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology in Israel.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Author(s).