nd harmonic component by inversing the pulse polarity. In this paper, we propose a delay-encoded harmonic imaging (DE-HI) technique to encode the 2nd harmonic with a one quarter period delay calculated at the transmit center frequency, rather than reversing the pulse polarity during multiplane wave emissions. Received DE-HI signals can then be decoded in the frequency domain to recover the signals as in single plane wave emissions, but mainly with improved SNR at the 2nd harmonic component instead of the fundamental component. DE-HI was tested experimentally with a point target, a B-mode imaging phantom, and in-vivo human liver imaging. Improvements in image contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR), spatial resolution, and lesion-signal-to-noise ratio (lSNR) have been achieved compared to standard plane wave compounding, MW imaging, and standard harmonic imaging (maximal improvement of 116% on CNR and 115% on lSNR as compared to standard HI around 55 mm depth in the B-mode imaging phantom study). The potential high frame rate and the stability of encoding and decoding processes of DE-HI were also demonstrated, which made DE-HI promising for a wide spectrum of imaging applications.">
Delay-Encoded Harmonic Imaging (DE-HI) in Multiplane-Wave Compounding (original) (raw)