학술논문

Micromachined diaphragm transducers for miniaturised ultrasound arrays
Document Type
Conference
Source
2012 IEEE International Ultrasonics Symposium Ultrasonics Symposium (IUS), 2012 IEEE International. :1-4 Oct, 2012
Subject
Signal Processing and Analysis
Fields, Waves and Electromagnetics
Components, Circuits, Devices and Systems
Transducers
Substrates
Ultrasonic imaging
Bandwidth
Educational institutions
Silicon
Acoustics
PMUT
transducer array
diaphragm transducer
integrated devices
piezoelectric thin films
Language
ISSN
1051-0117
1948-5719
Abstract
Miniaturised ultrasound transducer arrays with integrated electronics will in future enable significant advances in high resolution medical imaging and in acoustic tweezing for bioscience research. However, their development has been limited by challenges in scaling down conventional piezoelectric ultrasound transducer fabrication and interconnection techniques. Piezoelectric thin film transducers on silicon substrates can overcome these challenges by reducing dimensional constraints in fabrication and facilitating integration with electronics, including allowing low drive voltages in transmission. We present the design, fabrication and testing of diaphragm transducers to evaluate the feasibility of integrated piezoelectric micromachined ultrasonic transducers (PMUTs). Transducers have been designed, then fabricated with 80 µm and 130 µm diameter diaphragms, the latter in arrays with ∼500 diaphragms. Receive measurements demonstrate functionality of both devices, with pulse-echo bandwidths of approximately 90% for the 80 µm diaphragms, demonstrating initial feasibility for ultrasound imaging.