Photoacoustic transduction efficiency evaluation of candle soot nanoparticles/PDMS composites

Carbon-based materials have been considered as an efficient light-absorption component of film-type laser ultrasound transducers. Our previously designed laser ultrasound patch composed of candle soot nanoparticles and polydimethylsiloxane (CS/PDMS) composites showed high photoacoustic transducer efficiency than other carbon-based composites. In this study, we demonstrate that the carbon volume fraction and the thickness of clustered carbon nanoparticles of CS/PDMS composites are highly related to the photoacoustic transduction efficiency. This study builds upon our previous study to characterize optical properties of the CS/PDMS composites in both experimental measurements and finite difference time domain (FDTD) analysis in the visible wavelength range.