Finite-element simulation of effects of laser parameters on laser generated ultrasonic waves in human skin

Abstract

Recently laser generated ultrasound has been excessively exploited for characterizing multilayer materials and one of its increasing usage in medicine is recognition of skin properties. Regarding some optical properties of human skin and using finite element method (FEM) and ABAQUS, we represent a numerical analysis of coupled thermal and mechanical field and simulate the surface acoustic waves (SAWs) resulting from pulse laser irradiation within the assumed three-layered model. The simulations show that SAWs are sensitive to changes in laser parameters such as pulse rise time and radius of laser spot and will be able to be utilized to quantitavely extract the structural features of skin such as thickness, elasticity, etc and choosing best experimental parameters of laser.