On the resolution of planar ultrasonic tomography

A theoretical study of depth and lateral resolution of image reconstruction in planar ultrasonic tomography is presented. An ambiguity function of this system is derived based on the back‐and‐forth propagation with plane‐wave insonification. We show that both the depth and lateral resolution are dependent on the wavelength of the insonification and the range of values of the incident angles employed. The analysis yields a theoretical resolution limit for this type of planar ultrasonic tomography. We conclude that the depth resolution in particular can be significantly improved by increasing the extent of the angular view.