Phase aberration correction on two-dimensional conformal arrays

Two-dimensional conformal arrays are proposed to enhance low contrast lesion detection deep in the body. The arrays conform to the body maintaining good contact over a large area. To provide full three-dimensional focusing for two-dimensional imaging, such arrays are densely sampled in the scan direction (x) and coarsely sampled in the nonscan direction (y), i.e., the arrays are anisotropic. To illustrate reduction in slice thickness with increased array length in y, a two-dimensional array is synthesized using a one-dimensional, 128 element array with a 3.5 MHz center frequency. A mask is attached confining transmission and reception of acoustic waves to 2 mm in y. Using a mechanical scan system, the one-dimensional array is moved along y covering a 28.16 mm/spl times/20.0 mm aperture. Accordingly, the synthetic array has 128 elements in x and 10 elements in y. To correct for geometric irregularities due to array movement, a gelatin based phantom containing three-dimensional point targets is used for phase aberration correction. Results show that elevational beam quality is degraded if small geometric errors are not removed. Emulated conformality at the body surface and phase aberrations induced by spatial inhomogeneities in tissue are further imposed and shown to produce severe beam-forming artifacts. Two-dimensional phase aberration correction is applied and results indicate that the method is adequate to compensate for large phase excursions across the entire array. To fully realize the potential of large, two-dimensional, conformal arrays, proper two-dimensional phase aberration correction methods are necessary.<>