In Situ Characterization of Micro-Vibration in Natural Latex Membrane Resembling Tympanic Membrane Functionally Using Optical Doppler Tomography

Abstract

Non-invasive characterization of micro-vibrations in the tympanic membrane (TM) excited by external sound waves is considered as a promising and essential diagnosis in modern otolaryngology. To verify the possibility of measuring and discriminating the vibrating pattern of TM, here we describe a micro-vibration measurement method of latex membrane resembling the TM. The measurements are obtained with an externally generated audio stimuli of 2.0, 2.2, 2.8, 3.1 and 3.2 kHz, and their respective vibrations based tomographic, volumetric and quantitative evaluations were acquired using optical Doppler tomography (ODT). The micro oscillations and structural changes which occurred due to diverse frequencies are measured with sufficient accuracy using a highly sensitive ODT system implied phase subtraction method. The obtained results demonstrated the capability of measuring and analyzing the complex varying micro-vibration of the membrane according to implied sound frequency.