Improved Photoacoustic Beamforming Utilizing Apodization Windows

Photoacoustic (PA) imaging is a non-invasive and real-time imaging technique that is widely used in preclinical applications and is increasingly gaining acceptance in clinical settings. Known for its high spatial resolution, PA imaging enables detailed visualization of anatomical and functional information within biological tissues. However, the quality and efficiency of real-time limited-view PA imaging are often compromised by sidelobes, noise, and background signals, particularly when using delay-and-sum (DAS) beamforming with conventional ultrasound linear arrays. To address these challenges, this paper explores the adoption of appropriate receiving apodization windows to enhance PA beamforming. Both phantom and in vivo rat brain results demonstrate that selecting apodization windows with an appropriate F-number not only effectively suppresses image artifacts caused by background signals and noise, but also enhances signals from anatomical features of interest, such as the corpus callosum. The linear nature of the algorithm's operations ensures low computational complexity, allowing it to be effectively integrated into PA imaging systems and achieve real-time performance with both efficiency and image quality, ultimately contributing to more accurate quantitative analysis and diagnostic precision in medical applications, such as brain inflammation imaging.