Patent ID: 7804595

Claim:
A system for measuring properties of microbubble shells using light scattering, comprising: (a) a sampling volume configured to accommodate one or more microbubbles, wherein each such microbubble includes a microbubble shell comprising a physical membrane separating a volume of gas within the microbubble from a surrounding fluid, the sampling volume including a region of interest; (b) an acoustic driving section configured to deliver an acoustic pressure into the sampling volume, such that the acoustic pressure intersects with the region of interest; (c) a light providing section configured to illuminate the region of interest; (d) a light collecting section configured to capture light scattered by one or more microbubbles in the region of interest; and (e) a processor coupled with the light collecting section, the processor being configured to determine at least one property of the one or more microbubbles in the region of interest, the processor being configured to implement the following functions: (i) controlling the acoustic driving section such that a pressure change is caused in the region of interest, and such that scattered light is collected from the one or more microbubbles during changing pressure conditions; (ii) correlating relative scattered light intensity changes collected by the light collecting section during the changing pressure conditions with a radius of the one or more microbubbles to generate a radius and time relationship for tracking changes in the radius of the one or more microbubbles in the region of interest over time; and (iii) fitting the radius and time relationship to a dynamic model for describing the motion of a microbubble, to determine a fitted relationship, where the dynamic model includes at least one parameter corresponding to the physical membrane.