Design and evaluation of a compound acoustic lens for photoacoustic computed tomography

In photoacoustic computed tomography, the limited directivity of the detectors may cause deformation of off-center targets and lead to an imbalanced resolution in the imaging area. To improve the directivity of the acoustic detectors, several negative acoustic lenses have been proposed. In this study, we develop a new compound acoustic lens fabricated by integrating a concave polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) lens and a convex epoxy lens. Both theoretical simulations and experimental evaluations demonstrate that the compound lens provides a larger directivity compared to single lenses made of PDMS, epoxy, and liquid. The measured acceptance angles of a 6-mm piezoelectric acoustic transducer equipped with the compound, epoxy, liquid, and PDMS lenses are 55°, 36°, 25°, and 20°, respectively. No deformation is observed in the off-center targets by using compound lens. However, serious deformation appears in the cases using single lenses.