ABSTRACT
The ultrasonic properties of a promising ultrasound (US) contrast agent, named SDA (sonicated dextrose albumin) are reported in this paper. SDA is a suspension of stable microencapsulated gas bubbles with average diameter 2.0 microm prepared from sonicated dextrose albumin. The ultrasonic linear and nonlinear parameters, such as acoustic velocity, sound attenuation and acoustic nonlinearity parameter B/A of SDA, as a function of its bubble concentration from 1.0 x 10(7) to 2.05 x 10(8) microbubbles/mL in the frequency range of 2-6 MHz are measured in vitro. The sound attenuation coefficients over 2-6 MHz are linearly proportional to the bubble concentration and frequency. It is important to point out that the acoustic nonlinearity parameter B/A for SDA has a very large value that nonlinearly increases with the increase of bubble concentration.
