Download or read book Dual electrode Capacitive Micromachined Ultrasonic Transducers for Medical Ultrasound Applications written by Rasim Oytun Guldiken and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Capacitive Micromachined Ultrasonic Transducers (CMUTs) have been introduced as a viable alternative to piezoelectric transducers in medical ultrasound imaging in the last decade. CMUTs are especially suitable for applications requiring small size such as catheter based cardiovascular applications. Despite these advantages and their broad bandwidth, earlier studies indicated that the overall sensitivity of CMUTs need to be improved to match piezoelectric transducers. This dissertation addresses this issue by introducing the dual-electrode CMUT concept. Dual electrode configuration takes advantage of leveraged bending in electrostatic actuators to increase both the pressure output and receive sensitivity of the CMUTs. Static and dynamic finite element based models are developed to model the behavior of dual-electrode CMUTs. The devices are then successfully fabricated and characterized. Experiments illustrate that the pulse echo performance is increased by more than 15dB with dual-electrode CMUTs as compared to single electrode conventional CMUT. Further device optimization is explored via membrane shape adjustment by adding a center mass to the design. Electromechanical coupling coefficient (kc2) is investigated as a figure of merit to evaluate performance improvement with non-uniform/uniform membrane dual-electrode CMUTs. When the center mass is added to the design, the optimized non-uniform membrane increases the electromechanical coupling coefficient from 0.24 to 0.85 while increasing one-way 3dB fractional bandwidth from 80% to 140% and reducing the DC bias requirement from 160V to 132V. The results of this modeling study are successfully verified by experiments. With this membrane shape adjustment, significant performance improvement (nearly 20dB) is achieved with the dual-electrode CMUT structure that enables the CMUT performance to exceed that of piezoelectric transducers for many applications.
Download or read book Simulation of a Capacitive Micromachined Ultrasonic Transducer with a Parylene Membrane and Graphene Electrodes written by David Sadat and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 113 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Medical ultrasound technology accounts for over half of all imaging tests performed worldwide. In comparison to other methods, ultrasonic imaging is more portable and lower cost, and is becoming more accessible to remote regions where traditionally no medical imaging can be done. However, conventional ultrasonic imaging systems still rely on expensive PZT-based ultrasound probes that limit broader applications. In addition, the resolution of PZT based transducers is low due to the limitation in hand-fabrication methods of the piezoelectric ceramics. Capacitive Micromachined Ultrasonic Transducers (CMUTs) appears as an alternative to the piezoelectric (PZT) ceramic based transducer for ultrasound medical imaging. CMUTs show better ultrasound transducer design for batch fabrication, higher axial resolution of images, lower fabrication costs of the elements, ease of fabricating large arrays of cells using MEMS fabrication, and the extremely important potential to monolithically integrate the 2D transducer arrays directly with IC circuits for real-time 3D imaging. Currently most efforts on CMUTs are silicon based. Problems with current silicon-based CMUT designs include low pressure transmission and high-temperature fabrication processes. The pressure output from the silicon based CMUTs cells during transmission are too low when compared to commercially available PZT transducers, resulting in relatively blurry ultrasound images. The fabrication of the silicon-based cells, although easier than PZT transducers, still suffers from inevitable high temperature process and require specialized and expensive equipment. Manufacturing at an elevated temperature hinders the capability of fabricating front end analog processing IC circuits, thus it is difficult to achieve true 3D/4D imaging. Therefore novel low temperature fabrication with a low cost nature is needed. A polymer (Parylene) based CMUTs transducer has been investigated recently at UCF and aims to overcome limitations posted from the silicon based counterparts. This thesis describes the numerical simulation work and proposed fabrication steps of the Parylene based CMUT. The issue of transducer cost and pressure transmission is addressed by proposing the use of low cost and low temperature Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) fabrication of Parylene-C as the structural membrane plus graphene for the membrane electrodes. This study focuses mainly on comparing traditional silicon-based CMUT designs against the Parylene-C/Graphene CMUT based transducer, by using MEMS modules in COMSOL. For a fair comparison, single CMUT cells are modeled and held at a constant diameter and the similar operational frequency at the structural center. The numerical CMUT model is characterized for: collapse voltage, membrane deflection profile, center frequency, peak output pressure transmission over the membrane surface, and the sensitivity to the change in electrode surface charge. This study took the unique approaches in defining sensitivity of the CMUT by calculating the membrane response and the change in the electrode surface charge due to an incoming pressure wave. Optimal design has been achieved based on the simulation results. In comparison to silicon based CMUTs, the Parylene/Graphene based CMUT transducer produces 55% more in volume displacement and more than 35% in pressure output. The thesis has also laid out the detailed fabrication processes of the Parylene/Graphene based CMUT transducers. Parylene/Graphene based ultrasonic transducers can find wide applications in both medical imaging and Non destructive evaluation (NDE).
Download or read book Micromachined Ultrasonic Transducers written by and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Microfabricated ultrasonic transducers have been generated which operate in both liquids and gases. Air coupled through transmission of aluminum was observed for the first time using a pair of 2.3 MHz transducers. The dynamic range of the transducers was 110 dB, and the received signal had an SNR of 30 dB. Air coupled through transmission of steel and glass has also been observed. A theoretical model for the transducers has been refined and agrees well with experimental results. A robust microfabrication process has been developed and was used to generate air transducers which resonate from 2 to 12 MHz, as well as immersion transducers that operate in water from 1 to 20 MHz with a 60 dB dynamic range. Optimized immersion and air transducers have been designed and a dynamic range above 110 dB is anticipated. This development effort finds applications in hydrophones, medical ultrasound, nondestructive evaluation, ranging, flow metering, and scanning tip force sensing and lithography.
Download or read book Interface Engineering of Capacitive Micromachined Ultrasonic Transducers for Medical Applications written by Der-Song Lin and published by Stanford University. This book was released on 2011 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducers (CMUTs), have been widely studied in academia and industry over the last decade. CMUTs provide many benefits over traditional piezoelectric transducers including improvement in performance through wide bandwidth, and ease of electronics integration, with the potential to batch fabricate very large 2D arrays with low-cost and high-yield. Though many aspects of CMUT technology have been studied over the years, packaging the CMUT into a fully practical system has not been thoroughly explored. Two important interfaces of packaging that this thesis explores are device encapsulation (the interface between CMUTs and patients) and full electronic integration of large scale 2D arrays (the interface between CMUTs and electronics). In the first part of the work, I investigate the requirements for the CMUT encapsulation. For medical usage, encapsulation is needed to electrically insulate the device, mechanically protect the device, and maintain transducer performance, especially the access of the ultrasound energy. While hermetic sealing can protect many other MEMS devices, CMUTs require mechanical interaction to a fluid, which makes fulfilling the previous criterion very challenging. The proposed solution is to use a viscoelastic material with the glass-transition-temperature lower than room temperature, such as Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), to preserve the CMUT static and dynamic performance. Experimental implementation of the encapsulated imaging CMUT arrays shows the device performance was maintained; 95 % of efficiency, 85% of the maximum output pressure, and 91% of the fractional bandwidth (FBW) can be preserved. A viscoelastic finite element model was also developed and shows the performance effects of the coating can be accurately predicted. Four designs, providing acoustic crosstalk suppression, flexible substrate, lens focusing, and blood flow monitoring using PDMS layer were also demonstrated. The second part of the work, presents contributions towards the electronic integration and packaging of large-area 2-D arrays. A very large 2D array is appealing for it can enable advanced novel imaging applications, such as a reconfigurable array, and a compression plate for breast cancer screening. With these goals in mind, I developed the first large-scale fully populated and integrated 2D CMUTs array with 32 by 192 elements. In this study, I demonstrate a flexible and reliable integration approach by successfully combining a simple UBM preparation technique and a CMUTs-interposer-ASICs sandwich design. The results show high shear strength of the UBM (26.5 g), 100% yield of the interconnections, and excellent CMUT resonance uniformity ([lowercase Sigma] = 0.02 MHz). As demonstrated, this allows for a large-scale assembly of a tile-able array by using an interposer. Interface engineering is crucial towards the development of CMUTs into a practical ultrasound system. With the advances in encapsulation technique with a viscoelastic polymer and the combination of the UBM technique to the TSV fabrication for electronics integration, a fully integrated CMUT system can be realized.
Download or read book The Design Fabrication and Characterization of Capacitive Micromachined Ultrasonic Transducers for Imaging Applications written by Andrew Stephan Logan and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 155 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducers (CMUTs) have proven themselves to be excellent candidates for medical ultrasonic imaging applications. The use of semiconductor fabrication techniques facilitates the fabrication of high quality arrays of uniform cells and elements, broad acoustic bandwidth, the potential to integrate the transducers with the necessary electronics, and the opportunity to exploit the benefits of batch fabrication. In this thesis, the design, fabrication and testing of one- and two-dimensional CMUT arrays using a novel wafer bonding process whereby the membrane and the insulation layer are both silicon nitride is reported. A user-grown insulating membrane layer avoids the need for expensive SOI wafers, permits optimization of the electrode size, and allows more freedom in selecting the membrane thickness, while also enjoying the benefits of wafer bonding fabrication. Using a row-column addressing scheme for an NxN two-dimensional array permits three-dimensional imaging with a large reduction in the complexity of the array when compared to a conventional 2D array with connections to all N2 elements. Only 2N connections are required and the image acquisition rate has the potential to be greatly increased. A simplification of the device at the imaging end will facilitate the integration of a three-dimensional imaging CMUT array into either an endoscope or catheter which is the ultimate purpose of this research project. To date, many sizes of transducers which operate at different frequencies have been successfully fabricated. Initial characterization in terms of resonant frequency and, transmission and reception in immersion has been performed on most of the device types. Extensive characterization has been performed with a linear 32 element array transducer and a 32x32 element row-column transducer. Two- and three-dimensional phased array imaging has been demonstrated.
Download or read book Ultrasonic Transducers written by K Nakamura and published by Elsevier. This book was released on 2012-08-23 with total page 749 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ultrasonic transducers are key components in sensors for distance, flow and level measurement as well as in power, biomedical and other applications of ultrasound. Ultrasonic transducers reviews recent research in the design and application of this important technology. Part one provides an overview of materials and design of ultrasonic transducers. Piezoelectricity and basic configurations are explored in depth, along with electromagnetic acoustic transducers, and the use of ceramics, thin film and single crystals in ultrasonic transducers. Part two goes on to investigate modelling and characterisation, with performance modelling, electrical evaluation, laser Doppler vibrometry and optical visualisation all considered in detail. Applications of ultrasonic transducers are the focus of part three, beginning with a review of surface acoustic wave devices and air-borne ultrasound transducers, and going on to consider ultrasonic transducers for use at high temperature and in flaw detection systems, power, biomedical and micro-scale ultrasonics, therapeutic ultrasound devices, piezoelectric and fibre optic hydrophones, and ultrasonic motors are also described. With its distinguished editor and expert team of international contributors,Ultrasonic transducers is an authoritative review of key developments for engineers and materials scientists involved in this area of technology as well as in its applications in sectors as diverse as electronics, wireless communication and medical diagnostics. Reviews recent research in the design and application of ultrasonic transducers Provides an overview of the materials and design of ultrasonic transducers, with an in-depth exploration of piezoelectricity and basic configurations Investigates modelling and characterisation, applications of ultrasonic transducers, and ultrasonic transducers for use at high temperature and in flaw detection systems
Download or read book Capacitive Micromachined Ultrasonic Transducers with Substrate embedded Springs written by Byung Chul Lee and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After the first capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducer (CMUT) was invented in 1994, it became one of the candidate technologies to advance the state-of-the-art of medical ultrasound imaging. Benefiting from its fabrication technique based on the semiconductor industry, CMUT technology has broadened the medical and therapeutic applications such as real-time volumetric ultrasound imaging, catheter-based forward-looking intravascular ultrasound (IVUS), photoacoustic imaging, high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) and so on. In spite of many advantages, however, CMUT technology has been criticized with its relatively low transmit sensitivity (~10 kPa/V) or low average volume displacement efficiency (0.1 nm/V) as well as large drive and bias voltage requirements (in a range of a few hundreds of volts). In order to resolve these issues and open up new potential of clinical applications, this dissertation describes the design, fabrication, and system implementation of CMUTs with substrate-embedded springs, so-called post-CMUT (PCMUT). Since PCMUT structure resembles an ideal piston transducer, the improvements in performance mainly stem from the higher average displacement of the top plate for a given gap height. The overview of the first generation PCMUT is introduced and two main issues in simulation and fabrication aspects of the first generation PCMUT is discussed. To further improve the PCMUT device, a 3D finite element analysis (FEA) model of the PCMUT is demonstrated to predict the performance of the first generation PCMUT. In addition, the design guideline of the second generation PCMUT is proposed for achieving the maximum fractional bandwidth (100 %) as well as with the highest transmit sensitivity (~28 kPa/V). The second generation PCMUT is fabricated by using three combination MEMS processes: usage of two silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafers, wafer bonding process, and wafer polishing process. The second generation PCMUT achieves high transmit sensitivity (~21 kPa/V) or large average volume displacement efficiency (1.1 nm/V) with a low bias voltage (55 V). Compared to a commercial piezoelectric transducer, the second generation PCMUT improves 2.75 times of the maximum output pressure and 5.25 times of the average volume displacement efficiency with respect to the same voltage. After fabrication and performance characterization of the second generation PCMUT, this dissertation demonstrates the feasibility of PCMUT to use it in medical imaging system by integrating PCMUT with a custom-built integrated circuit (IC). Photoacoustic imaging is also presented for one of its application examples.
Download or read book Mems for Biomedical Applications written by Shekhar Bhansali and published by Elsevier. This book was released on 2012-07-18 with total page 511 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The application of Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS) in the biomedical field is leading to a new generation of medical devices. MEMS for biomedical applications reviews the wealth of recent research on fabrication technologies and applications of this exciting technology.The book is divided into four parts: Part one introduces the fundamentals of MEMS for biomedical applications, exploring the microfabrication of polymers and reviewing sensor and actuator mechanisms. Part two describes applications of MEMS for biomedical sensing and diagnostic applications. MEMS for in vivo sensing and electrical impedance spectroscopy are investigated, along with ultrasonic transducers, and lab-on-chip devices. MEMS for tissue engineering and clinical applications are the focus of part three, which considers cell culture and tissue scaffolding devices, BioMEMS for drug delivery and minimally invasive medical procedures. Finally, part four reviews emerging biomedical applications of MEMS, from implantable neuroprobes and ocular implants to cellular microinjection and hybrid MEMS.With its distinguished editors and international team of expert contributors, MEMS for biomedical applications provides an authoritative review for scientists and manufacturers involved in the design and development of medical devices as well as clinicians using this important technology. Reviews the wealth of recent research on fabrication technologies and applications of Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS) in the biomedical field Introduces the fundamentals of MEMS for biomedical applications, exploring the microfabrication of polymers and reviewing sensor and actuator mechanisms Considers MEMS for biomedical sensing and diagnostic applications, along with MEMS for in vivo sensing and electrical impedance spectroscopy
Download or read book Capacitive Micromachined Ultrasonic Transducers CMUTs for Humidity Sensing written by Zhou Zheng and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the last two decades, capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducers (CMUTs) have proven themselves to be promising for various ultrasound imaging and chemical sensing applications. Although holding many benefits for ultrasound imaging, CMUTs have certain weaknesses such as the relatively low output pressure at transmission, which hinder their development in the diagnostic imaging application. In the sensing area, CMUTs have shown attractive features such as high mass sensitivity, miniaturized array configuration, and ease of functionalization. However, their potential for humidity sensing is less explored. The objectives of this thesis lie in two aspects. One is to offer a solution to overcome the limitation of low output pressure, and the other is to develop CMUTs as resonant gravimetric humidity sensors. The major efforts are made on the second task. For the first objective, a novel dual-element ultrasonic transducer is proposed. It incorporates two transducer technologies by using a circular piezoelectric element for ultrasound transmission and an annular CMUT element for reception. The hybrid transducer combines the broad bandwidth and high receive sensitivity of the CMUT and the high output power of the piezoelectric transducer to improve the overall sensitivity and axial resolution. The annular CMUT is designed, fabricated, and concentrically aligned with the piezoelectric probe via a custom housing. Immersion measurements show that the hybrid dual-element transducer improves the axial resolution by 25.58% and the signal-to-noise ratio by 8.55 dB over the commercial piezoelectric probe. For the second objective, a CMUT-based resonant humidity sensor is first developed with the direct wafer bonding technique. Graphene oxide (GO) is employed as the sensing material. Due to combination of the mass-sensitive CMUT and the moisture-sensitive GO, the sensor exhibits rapid response/recovery, good repeatability, and higher sensitivity than most of its competitors. The second generation of CMUT-based humidity sensors aims to further improve the relative humidity (RH) sensing performance by adopting the nitride-to-oxide wafer bonding technology for CMUT fabrication. In contrast to conventional wafer bonding CMUT processes that use expensive silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafers to produce resonating membranes, the new process employs low-pressure chemical vapor deposition (LPCVD) silicon nitride as the membrane material. It provides thinner and lighter membranes, and thus more sensitive CMUT resonators. Additional benefits of the nitride-to-oxide wafer bonding technique are the reduced fabrication complexity and more controllable membrane thickness. Finally, a dual-frequency (10/14 MHz) CMUT is developed using this fabrication technique. It generates two RH response curves and can provide more accurate RH sensing. Due to the independence of the two resonance frequencies, the dual-frequency CMUT also shows great potential for identification of different chemicals. This thesis demonstrates that CMUT sensors can be strong candidates for miniaturized, highly sensitive, and reliable humidity sensors.
Download or read book Top orthogonal to bottom electrode Capacitive Micromachined Ultrasound Transducers for Low cost 3D Ultrasound Imaging written by Alexander Sampaleanu and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 95 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Capacitive micromachined ultrasound transducers (CMUTs) offer a promising solution for three-dimensional ultrasound imaging due to their ability to be easily fabricated in two-dimensional arrays. However, channel routing is still non-trivial and cost-intensive. The subject of this thesis is a 'Top-Orthogonal-to-Bottom-Electrode' (TOBE) 2-D CMUT array architecture, along with its respective row-column addressing schemes, which can significantly reduce the channel count of a 2-D array, such that only 2N channels are required for an N x N array. Background on acoustics, ultrasound imaging, and CMUT technology is presented before the novel array architecture and imaging schemes is described. Arrays were fabricated using a sacrificial release method, and acoustic immersion and air-coupled tests, along with imaging simulations, were done to validate array functionality. Results showed that single-element actuation is possible with a row-column addressing scheme, allowing for novel imaging schemes which could result in significantly more cost-effective 3-D ultrasound imaging.
Download or read book Piezoelectric and Acoustic Materials for Transducer Applications written by Ahmad Safari and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2008-09-11 with total page 483 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book discusses the underlying physical principles of piezoelectric materials, important properties of ferroelectric/piezoelectric materials used in today’s transducer technology, and the principles used in transducer design. It provides examples of a wide range of applications of such materials along with the appertaining rationales. With contributions from distinguished researchers, this is a comprehensive reference on all the pertinent aspects of piezoelectric materials.
Download or read book Topical Review written by Jingkuang Chen and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Capacitive Micromachined Ultrasonic Transducers for Non destructive Testing Applications written by Lawrence Lai Pong Wong and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ultrasound is a popular technique for industrial non-destructive testing (NDT) applications. By sending ultrasonic waves into an object and observing the amplitude and the delay of the reflected or transmitted waves, one can characterize the material, measure the thickness of the object, and detect discontinuities (flaws) as well as the size, location, and orientation of the defects in the object. Traditionally, ultrasonic transducers for NDT are made with piezoelectric crystals. Meanwhile, another class of ultrasonic transducers known as capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducers (CMUTs) have become popular in medical ultrasound research because of their large bandwidths and other attributes that allow them to be integrated into the tip of a catheter. However, CMUTs have not been widely adopted in ultrasonic NDT applications. In this thesis, three important CMUTs characteristics that could potentially make them attractive for NDT applications are introduced and demonstrated. First, CMUTs can be beneficial to NDT because the fabrication techniques of CMUTs can easily be used to implement high-frequency, high-density phased arrays, which are essential for high resolution scanning. Surface scanning using a 2-D row-column addressed CMUT array was demonstrated. Secondly, CMUTs can be integrated with supporting microelectronic circuits, thus one can implement a highly integrated transducer system, which can be useful in structural health monitoring NDT applications. Front-end microelectronic circuits that include a transmit pulser and a receive amplifier were designed, tested, and characterized. Thirdly, CMUTs are suitable for air-coupled applications because of their low acoustic impedance at resonance. Air-coupled CMUTs fabricated in a standard RF-MEMS process were characterized and tested. This thesis concludes with an analysis of the potential usefulness of CMUTs for ultrasonic NDT. While many ultrasonic NDT applications are better off being performed using conventional piezoelectric transducers, CMUTs can and should be used in certain NDT applications that can take advantage of the beneficial characteristics of this exciting transducer technology.
Download or read book High Frequency Piezoelectric Micromachined Ultrasound Transducers written by Christine Dempster and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The goal of the current research is to fabricate 4-28 MHz Aluminum Nitride (AlN) piezoelectric micromachined ultrasound transducers (pMUTs) to be used in pulse echo imaging, such as biometric fingerprint authentication and real time 3D medical imaging. Unimorph piezoelectric plates, composed of SiO2/Mo/AlN/Al layers on a Silicon wafer, are designed and modeled in both linear and 2D arrays with single and dual electrode designs. These are designed to be fabricated, tested, and eventually integrated above CMOS on a silicon substrate. Applying a potential difference between the two electrodes of a pMUT causes the piezoelectric AlN layer to bend and generate a pressure wave, thus allowing the device to act as a transmitter. The same device acts as a receiver when a pressure wave deforms the AlN layer and generates an electrical charge. Element diaphragm diameter (30 micron to 80 micron) determines resonant frequency and thus the dimensions of an object that can most accurately be imaged by the pMUT array. PMUTs have been fabricated using the same method as in this project to successfully achieve pMUTs of larger diameters and lower effective frequencies. Decreasing the size of the pMUTs from what is currently being fabricated in should allow accurate imaging of much smaller features, something of use for highly accurate fingerprint identity authentication and minimally invasive medical imaging in real time. Since the start of this project, a finite element model (FEM) was used to determine the frequency response, maximum deflection, and response to initial stress conditions for pMUTs of 30, 50, 60, and 80 micron diameters. According to the finite element model, the smallest pMUT will have a first mode frequency of 28 MHz and the largest pMUT will have a 4 MHz response if a 1 V potential difference is applied across the piezoelectric layer. Maximum static displacement is 1.9 Å for the single electrode design and 4.9 Å for the dual electrode design. Analytical results confirm FEM findings.
Download or read book Row column Capacitive Micromachined Ultrasonic Transducers for Medical Imaging written by Albert I-Hsiang Chen and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 151 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ultrasound imaging plays an important role in modern medical diagnosis. Recent progress in real-time 3-D ultrasound imaging can offer critical information such as the accurate estimation of organ, cyst, or tumour volumes. However, compared to conventional 2-D ultrasound imaging, the large amount of data and circuit complexity found in 3-D ultrasound imaging results in very expensive systems. Therefore, a simplification scheme for 3-D ultrasound imaging technology is needed for a more wide-spread use and to advance clinical development of volumetric ultrasound. Row-column addressing 2-D array is one particular simplification scheme that requires only N + N addressing lines to activate each element in an N x N array. As a result, the fabrication, circuit, and processing complexity dramatically decrease. Capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducer (CMUT) technology was chosen to fabricate the array as it offers micro-precision fabrication and a wide bandwidth, which make it an attractive transducer technology. The objective of this thesis is to investigate and demonstrate the imaging potential of row-column CMUT arrays for RT3D imaging. First, the motivation, physics, and modelling of both CMUTs and row-column arrays are described, followed by the demonstration of a customized row-column CMUT pseudo-real-time 3-D imaging system. One particular limitation about row-column arrays discovered as part of this dissertation work is the limited field-of-view of the row-column arrays' imaging performance. A curved row-column CMUT array was proposed to improve the field-of-view, and the resulting modelling of the acoustic field and simulated reconstructed image are presented. Furthermore, a new fabrication process was proposed to construct a curved row-column CMUT array. The resulting device was tested to demonstrate its flexibility to achieve the necessary curvature. Finally, a new wafer bonding process is introduced to tackle the next generation of RC-CMUT fabrication. Many of the new fabrication techniques reported in this work are useful for CMUT fabrication engineers. The analysis on row-column array also provides additional insights for 2-D array simplification research.
Download or read book Capacitive Micromachined Ultrasonic Transducer arrays for blood flow ultrasound Doppler and photoacoustic imaging applications written by Mengli Wang and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Interface Engineering of Capacitive Micromachined Ultrasonic Transducers for Medical Applications written by Der-Song Lin and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducers (CMUTs), have been widely studied in academia and industry over the last decade. CMUTs provide many benefits over traditional piezoelectric transducers including improvement in performance through wide bandwidth, and ease of electronics integration, with the potential to batch fabricate very large 2D arrays with low-cost and high-yield. Though many aspects of CMUT technology have been studied over the years, packaging the CMUT into a fully practical system has not been thoroughly explored. Two important interfaces of packaging that this thesis explores are device encapsulation (the interface between CMUTs and patients) and full electronic integration of large scale 2D arrays (the interface between CMUTs and electronics). In the first part of the work, I investigate the requirements for the CMUT encapsulation. For medical usage, encapsulation is needed to electrically insulate the device, mechanically protect the device, and maintain transducer performance, especially the access of the ultrasound energy. While hermetic sealing can protect many other MEMS devices, CMUTs require mechanical interaction to a fluid, which makes fulfilling the previous criterion very challenging. The proposed solution is to use a viscoelastic material with the glass-transition-temperature lower than room temperature, such as Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), to preserve the CMUT static and dynamic performance. Experimental implementation of the encapsulated imaging CMUT arrays shows the device performance was maintained; 95 % of efficiency, 85% of the maximum output pressure, and 91% of the fractional bandwidth (FBW) can be preserved. A viscoelastic finite element model was also developed and shows the performance effects of the coating can be accurately predicted. Four designs, providing acoustic crosstalk suppression, flexible substrate, lens focusing, and blood flow monitoring using PDMS layer were also demonstrated. The second part of the work, presents contributions towards the electronic integration and packaging of large-area 2-D arrays. A very large 2D array is appealing for it can enable advanced novel imaging applications, such as a reconfigurable array, and a compression plate for breast cancer screening. With these goals in mind, I developed the first large-scale fully populated and integrated 2D CMUTs array with 32 by 192 elements. In this study, I demonstrate a flexible and reliable integration approach by successfully combining a simple UBM preparation technique and a CMUTs-interposer-ASICs sandwich design. The results show high shear strength of the UBM (26.5 g), 100% yield of the interconnections, and excellent CMUT resonance uniformity ([lowercase Sigma] = 0.02 MHz). As demonstrated, this allows for a large-scale assembly of a tile-able array by using an interposer. Interface engineering is crucial towards the development of CMUTs into a practical ultrasound system. With the advances in encapsulation technique with a viscoelastic polymer and the combination of the UBM technique to the TSV fabrication for electronics integration, a fully integrated CMUT system can be realized.
