Experimental Study of Acoustic Radiation Force of an Ultrasound Beam on Absorbing and Scattering Objects.

Acoustic radiation force is a nonlinear acoustic effect caused by the transfer of wave momentum to absorbing or scattering objects. This phenomenon is exploited in modern ultrasound metrology for measurement of the acoustic power radiated by a source and is used for both therapeutic and diagnostic sources in medical applications. To calculate radiation force an acoustic hologram can be used in conjunction with analytical expressions based on the angular spectrum of the measured field. The results of an experimental investigation of radiation forces in two different cases are presented in this paper. In one case, the radiation force of an obliquely incident ultrasound beam on a large absorber (which completely absorbs the beam) is considered. The second case concerns measurement of the radiation force on a spherical target that is small compared to the beam diameter.