Some useful definitions in regard to Diagnostic Ultras

This section provides some useful definitions or information in r

easily found on the Internet:
• Absorption is the transfer of energy from the ultrasound beam to the tissue. It is p

• Apodization is a method for reducing side lobes in some arrays. It gradually decrea
surface with distance from its center. It is usually accomplished by using more
elements.

• Axial resolution is the minimum separation between two interfaces located in a dire
can be imaged as two different interfaces

• Decibel is a way to express the ratio of two sound intensities:  dB=10log10I1/I2 be

dB = I multiplied by 2 and -3 db = I divided by 2

• Diffraction is the change in the directions and intensities of a group of waves after
aperture

• Duty factor is the lapse of time the transducer is actively transmitting sound

• Echo ranging is the relationship between transit time and reflector depth expressed

• Grating lobes as side lobes are secondary ultrasound beams projecting off-axis at p
Side lobes are too small to produce important artifacts.

• Half Value Layer (HVL) is the distance the sound beam penetrates into a tissue wh
half of its initial value

• Huygens' principle states that an expanding sphere of waves behaves as if each po

source of radiation of the same frequency and phase

• Impedance is the product of the density of a material and the speed of sound in th

• Pulse average intensity I(PA) is the average intensity during the pulse

• Lateral resolution is the minimum separation of two interfaces aligned along a dire
beam. It depends on the beam width

• Partial Volume Artifact (slice thickness or volume averaging artifact), that occurs w
the scanned structure

• Q-value means the degree that a transducer is finely tuned to specific narrow frequ
means wide bandwitdh and High Q means narrow bandwidth

• Range resolution is the ability to determine the depth of reflectors

• Rayleigh scatterers are objects whose dimensions are much less than the ultrasoun
 with frequency raised to the 4th power and provides much of the diagnostic inf

• Refraction is the bending of a wave beam when it crosses at an oblique angle the i
which the waves propagate at different velocities

• Snell's law governs the direction of the transmitted beam when refraction occurs:s
transmit and incident angles respectively)

• Spatial Average Intensity (SA) is the acoustic power within the beam, divided by th

• Spatial Peak Intensity (SP) is the point in the sound field with maximum intensity

• Side lobes are energy in the sound beam falling outside the main beam

• Spatial resolution means how closely two reflectors -or scattering regions, can be t
identified as different reflectors

• Subdicing is a technique used to overcome grating lobes: each major transducer e

each one being a half wave lenght

• Temporal (instantaneous) Peak Intensity I(TP) or I(IP) is the maximum intensity d

• Time Average Intensity I(TA): average intensity calculated over the time between

• Wavelength is l=c/f  (c = propagation speed; f = frequency)

Doppler
• Aliasing is an artifact that lowers the frequency components when the PRF is less t
Doppler signal

• Beat frequency, for CW Doppler, is the Doppler shift

• Doppler shift is the change in the perceived frequency relative to the transmitted f
= fr - f0  = 2f0v/c

• Doppler shift frequency with incident angle: fD  = 2f0v/c cos q

• Ensemble length -packet size, shots per line- is the number of pulses per scan line
most be pulsed several times

• FFT. Fast Fourier Transform analyzer is a common device that performs spectral an
case, it displays different quadrature Doppler frequencies, or reflector velocitie
 (Doppler frequency is proportional to reflector velocity) along time

• High pass filter is the wall filter

• Nyquist Frequency is the maximum frequency that can be sampled without aliasing
Repetition Frequency)

• Quadrature detection is a signal processing method for directional Doppler in which

channels differ in phase by 1/4 period. The output Doppler signal phase for bot
Doppler shift, whether positive or negative

• Spectral analysis is the quantitative analysis to display the distribution of frequenci

• Variance is the variation of Doppler frequencies within each pixel during a pulse pa
color Doppler

 
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