  We report on the observation and correction of an imaging artifact attributed
to the Talbot effect in the context of acousto-optic imaging using structured
acoustic waves. When ultrasound waves are emitted with a periodic structure,
the Talbot effect produces $\pi$ -phase shifts of that periodic structure at
every half of the Talbot distance in propagation. This unwanted artifact is
detrimental to the image reconstruction, which assumes near-field diffraction
is negligible. Here, we demonstrate both theoretically and experimentally how
imposing an additional phase modulation on the acoustic periodic structure
induces a symmetry constraint leading to the annihilation of the Talbot effect.
This will significantly improve the acousto-optic image reconstruction quality
and allows for an improvement of the reachable spatial resolution of the image.

Classical Physics;Image and Video Processing;Optics