Ultrasonic stars for time reversal focusing using induced cavitation bubbles

Time reversal focusing with ultrasonic arrays is a way to focus waves through heterogeneous media. It requires a reference signal either sent by a small active source embedded in the medium or backscattered by a strong scatterer acting as a passive source. The potential of this method in ultrasonic medical imaging was already envisioned for aberration corrections. However, in many practical situations it is not possible to insert an active source in the medium or to rely on the presence of a unique strong scaterrer at focus in order to generate the reference signal. In analogy with the field of adaptive optics in astronomy, we propose here to create artificial "ultrasonic stars" in the body. The trick consists in creating cavitation bubbles inside the medium using one part of the ultrasonic probe. The bubble cavitation generates a spherical wave that propagates through medium heterogeneities to a time reversal array and is used as a reference signal for the time reversal method. This novel method is here experimentally validated for aberrations corrections in tissue mimicking phantoms.