To improve the reliability of diagnosis of tissue pathologies (e.g., cancers) based on ultrasonic imaging, quantitative images of physiological parameters such as speed of sound and/or absorption coefficient can in theory be obtained by inverse scattering procedures. Previous studies [Cavicchi etal., IEEE Trans. Ultrason. Ferroelec. Freq. Control UFFC35, 22–33 (1988)] employed a moment‐method matrix formulation under a monofrequency assumption. Periodicities of the field phasors caused a uniqueness problem in the inverse scattering solution for scatterers with phase shift magnitudes greater than π; in practical medical imaging, the phase shift would be hundreds of π. A reformulation of the method in the time domain appears more promising because the phase shifts are now merely time delays. The moment‐method formulation is presented for forward scattering. A preliminary numerical study has verified the expansion using the moment‐method equation and the internal field calculated by the inverse discrete Fourier transform of the well‐known monofrequency solution solved at many frequencies. Future studies will address the more difficult problems of time‐domain field inversion and inverse scattering.

This content is only available via PDF.
You do not currently have access to this content.