On the role of passive elements in photoacoustic reconstruction

Abstract

In the reconstruction process of photo acoustic experiments, it was observed that adding a passive element to the experimental setup, improves the quality of the reconstruction of the object. This contribution analyzes this effect in some detail. We consider a cylindrical configuration. We start from an artificial and theoretically constructed optical absorption distribution that radiates sound waves when interrogated by the optical pulse. We analyze in the experimental setup the addition of the passive element to this example. The reported investigation is a part of a larger study on the existence, uniqueness and stability of photo acoustic inverse source reconstructions.