Full-field mapping of ultrasonic field by lightsource-synchronized projection

A simple method for imaging ultrasonic fields in clear media is introduced. A modulated laser source is used to project the ultrasonic field onto a CCD camera. By use of the source-synchronized lock-in detection scheme, 2D images of the amplitude and phase distributions can be determined simultaneously. This technique is experimentally demonstrated with a 1-MHz and a 3.5-MHz ultrasonic transducer operated in continuous-wave mode. This method is very straightforward to implement and can be combined with the traditional tomographic reconstruction technique to obtain the 3D distribution of an ultrasonic field. (C) 1999 Acoustical Society of America.