• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.60 no.6
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• pp.1209-1214
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• 2011

Photoacoustics has been broadly studied in biomedicine, for both human and small animal tissues. Photoacoustics uniquely combines the absorption contrast of light or radio frequency waves with ultrasound resolution. Moreover, it is non-ionizing and non-invasive, and is the fastest growing new biomedical method, with clinical applications on the way. This paper provides a brief recap of recent developments in photoacoustics in biomedicine, from basic principles to applications. The emphasized areas include the new imaging modalities as well as translational research topics. A primary PA application in biomedicine is photoacoustic tomography (PAT). The past decade has seen fast developments in both theoretical reconstruction algorithms and innovative imaging techniques, and PAT has been implemented in imaging different tissues, from centimeter-large breast tumors to several micrometer-large single red blood cels (RBC). PAT now provides structural, functional and molecular imaging. Overall, PA techniques for biomedicine are maturing. They have been widely used to study both animal and human tissues. Recently, more and more research focuses on clinical applications. Commercialized PA systems are expected to be available in the near future, and wide clinical PA applications are foreseen.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.895-898
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• 2014

The wavelength dependence of the photoacoustic signal for n-type GaAs semiconductors in the region of the band-gap energies was investigated. The significant changes in the phase and amplitude of the photoacoustic signal near the band-gap absorption wavelengths were observed to occur when the Si-doping densities in GaAs were varied. Particularly, the first derivatives of the photoacoustic phase vs. wavelength graphs were evaluated and fitted with single Gaussian functions. The peak centers and the widths of the Gaussian curves clearly showed linear relationships with the log values of the Si-doping densities in n-type GaAs semiconductors. It is proposed that the wavelength-dependent PA spectroscopy can be used as a simple and nondestructive method for measuring the doping densities in bulk semiconductors.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.73-78
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• 2012

The photophone, Alexander Graham Bell's device for transmitting sound through light was patented in 1880. It included the transmitter modulating and reflecting strong light like sunlight to a distant receiver which produced sound. In this working of the photophone, the discovery of the sound-emitting effect under illumination was very essential. Longing for being famous in the scientific community, Bell focused on presenting various methods for producing sounds and for maximizing the loudness by performing intensive research on the photoacoustic effect. Bell's scientific research on photoacoustics was successful in establishing himself as a scientist and laid a foundation of photoacoustic analysis. And his invention became a basis for other researchers' subsequent technologies like fiber-optic communication.