Tissue harmonic imaging based on amplitude modulation by controlling number of driving elements

A new tissue harmonic imaging (THI) technique, which does not require linearity of a transmission system, based on amplitude modulation by controlling the number of driving elements (AM-CNDE) is proposed. Whether AM-CNDE can achieve THI was investigated by simulation and experiment. It was found out that AM-CNDE can use both harmonics and a fundamental band component although conventional TID (pulse inversion) uses only harmonics to generate images. Due to the fundamental band component, the obtained signal has a broader band than that in the case of pulse inversion. It was confirmed that AM-CNDE achieves TID with almost the same resolution as that by pulse inversion. AM-CNDE is thus considered to be a promising candidate for THI.