Noncontact elastic measurement of biological tissues using laser profilometer by tracking the surface wave

Elasticity is one of the fundamental properties of materials. It is an important diagnostic parameter to investigate physiological dysfunctions in biological tissues. This paper presents a novel method to accurately measure the elastic by Rayleigh wave tracing on the surface of phantoms using laser profilometer with airpuff excitation. We developed a laser profilometer elastography system, including the optical system, timing sequence, and control software. The elastics of agarose phantoms with 0.6%, 0.8%, 1.2% and 1.5% concentration were measured. The method was validated by comparing it with the results obtained by using a laser speckle elastography. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first elastic modality based on a laser profilometer. This method can be used for online elasticity measurement of biological.