Reconstruction of optical absorption coefficient maps of heterogeneous media by photoacoustic tomography coupled with diffusion equation based regularized Newton method.

We describe a novel reconstruction method that allows for quantitative recovery of optical absorption coefficient maps of heterogeneous media using tomographic photoacoustic measurements. Images of optical absorption coefficient are obtained from a diffusion equation based regularized Newton method where the absorbed energy density distribution from conventional photoacoustic tomography serves as the measured field data. We experimentally demonstrate this new method using tissue-mimicking phantom measurements and simulations. The reconstruction results show that the optical absorption coefficient images obtained are quantitative in terms of the shape, size, location and optical property values of the heterogeneities examined.