Patent ID: 8852108

Claim:
An ultrasound imaging apparatus, comprising a transmitter which transmits a fundamental wave pulse an to a subject, a receiver which receives an echo in response to the fundamental wave pulse from the subject, and a signal processor to process a received signal at the receiver and generate image data, wherein the receiver has a predetermined reception band, wherein the fundamental wave pulse transmitted by the transmitter consists of one frequency band having a frequency peak that includes fundamental wave components, and each of an upper limit frequency and a lower limit frequency of the one frequency band is set to be values which make both of a low frequency harmonic component and a high frequency harmonic component be generated within the reception band by a nonlinear acoustic overlap between the low and high frequency harmonic components within a bandwidth of the transmitted fundamental frequency component, where the lower and higher frequency component bands are different from the fundamental frequency component band; and wherein the signal processor generates image data by using nonlinear components including both of a nonlinear component of at least one of the low frequency harmonic component and the high frequency harmonic component received by the receiver.