Patent ID: 8306763

Claim:
A method for determining information about particle geometry, said method comprising the steps of: insonifying only a single particle; measuring a Doppler distribution of waves scattered from the particle; generating a lookup table of known distributions; comparing the Doppler distribution to the lookup table distributions; and obtaining the particle geometry from the lookup table distributions to match the Doppler distribution; wherein said generating step comprises the step of obtaining the lookup table distributions, p(x,y,z,t), from the relationship p ⁡ ( x , y , z , t ) = ⅇ - ⅈω 0 ⁢ t 2 ⁢ π ⁢ ∫ - ∞ ∞ ⁢ ∫ - ∞ ∞ ⁢ P ⁡ ( k x , k y ) ⁢ ⅇ - ⅈ ⁢ ⁢ k x ⁢ x ⁢ ⅇ - ⅈ ⁢ ⁢ k y ⁢ y ⁢ ⅇ ⅈ ⁢ ⁢ z ⁢ k 2 - k x 2 - k y 2 ⁢ ⅆ k x ⁢ ⅆ k y , where P(k x ,k y ) is a spatial Fourier transform of an acoustic pressure field for a given aperture corresponding to a particular particle geometry.