Combined physical and statistical modeling of laser induced ultrasound signals from thin light absorbing films

This paper presents a method for predicting the ultrasound pulses generated by thin semi-transparent polymer films, excited by a short laser pulse. The acoustic pressure is first modeled based on the physical properties of the polymer. Partial Least-Squares Regression is then used to link the model pressure to the ultrasound pulses measured by an ultrasound transducer. The uncertainty of the regression is also simulated, showing that the method is robust to noise in the measurements.