Extraction of physical parameters from photoacoustic spectroscopy using wavelet transform.

Photoacoustic (PA) signals carry much information related to the physical parameters of a sample, such as its optical, thermal, acoustic, and elastic properties. These physical parameters synchronously make their own contributions to PA signals. It is difficult to distinguish the contributions of different physical parameters to the mixed PA signals. To separate these parameters and to extract the featured information, we report herein a means of dissecting the transient PA signal using time-frequency analysis in a forward detection model. The simulated and experimental results indicate that the features of different physical parameters related to the sample can be qualitatively extracted from the mixed PA signals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]