Photoacoustic Doppler Effect - Experiment

Experiment

In the first demonstration of the Photoacoustic Doppler effect, a continuous wave diode laser was used in a photoacoustic microscopy setup with an ultrasonic transducer as the detector. The sample was a solution of absorbing particles moving through a tube. The tube was in a water bath containing scattering particles

Figure 2 shows a relationship between average flow velocity and the experimental photoacoustic Doppler frequency shift. In a scattering medium, such as the experimental phantom, fewer photons reach the absorbers than in an optically clear medium. This affects the signal intensity but not the magnitude of the frequency shift. Another demonstrated feature of this technique is that it is capable of measuring flow direction relative to the detector based on the sign of the frequency shift. The reported minimum detected flow rate is 0.027 mm/s in the scattering medium.