Download or read book High Frequency Piezo Composite Micromachined Ultrasound Transducer Array Technology for Biomedical Imaging written by Xiaoning Jiang and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 108 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this monograph, the authors reports the current advancement in high frequency piezoelectric crystal micromachined ultrasound transducers and arrays and their biomedical applications. Piezoelectric ultrasound transducers operating at high frequencies (>20 MHz) are of increasing demand in recent years for medical imaging and biological particle manipulation involved therapy. The performances of transducers greatly rely on the properties of the piezoelectric materials and transduction structures, including piezoelectric coefficient (d), electromechanical coupling coefficient (k), dielectric permittivity (e) and acoustic impedance (Z). Piezo-composite structures are preferred because of their relatively high electromechanical coupling coefficient and low acoustic impedance. A number of piezo-composite techniques have been developed, namely "dice and fill," "tape-casting," "stack and bond," "interdigital phase bonding," "laser micromachining" and "micro-molding". However, these techniques are either difficult to achieve fine features or not suitable for manufacturing of high frequency ultrasound transducers (>20 MHz). The piezo-composite micromachined ultrasound transducers (PC-MUT) technique discovered over the last 10 years or so has demonstrated high performance high frequency piezo-composite ultrasound transducers. In this monograph, piezoelectric materials used for high frequency transducers is introduced first. Next, the benefits and theory of piezo composites is presented, followed by the design criteria and fabrication methods. Biomedical applications using piezo composites micromachined ultrasound transducers (PC-MUT) and arrays will also be reported, in comparison with other ultrasound transducer techniques. The final part of this monograph describes challenges and future perspectives of this technique for biomedical applications.

Download or read book High Frequency Piezo Composite Micromachined Ultrasound Transducer Array Technology for Biomedical Imaging written by and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book High Efficient Piezoelectric Micromachined Ultrasonic Transducer Arrays written by Qi Wang and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Piezoelectric micromachined ultrasonic transducers (PMUTs) have been developed for many applications such as biometric identification, medical imaging and gesture recognition as an economic and small replacement for current bulk piezoelectric ultrasonic transducers. The PMUTs fabrication process compatibility to complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) is an advantage for making circuit integrated systems in the same process to achieve low cost and small size, especially for mobile and wearable devices. The current PMUTs have no sufficient output pressures compare to bulk piezoelectric ultrasonic transducers. This thesis will focus on improving the efficiency of the PMUTs and their arrays from the perspective of piezoelectric materials, individual PMUT structures, arrays designs and the acoustic couplings in the arrays. Firstly, the background of the piezoelectric ultrasonic transducers will be introduced. Comparisons of the micromachined ultrasonic transducers (MUT, including piezoelectric and capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducers) with current bulk piezoelectric ultrasonic transducers show that MUTs have the advantages in the low cost, small size for more potential applications. Then, to improve the current performance of the PMUTs, novel piezoelectric materials are utilized to fabricate PMUT arrays. Characterization results indicated that scandium aluminum nitride is a promising thin film for the future PMUT products. Furthermore, the acoustic coupling is a major source of the cross talk in the large PMUT arrays and will influence the imaging resolution. An equivalent circuit model is built and verified experimentally to improve the PMUT array designs. Meanwhile, the acoustic coupling is also utilized to achieve improved pulse-echo performance with a novel PMUT structure. Next, the PMUT array optimizations based on different structural thicknesses will be studied theoretically and experimentally in the following chapter. The results show that a thin and densely packed array is the key to achieve high performance. Current cavity SOI wafer-based fabrication process is not good enough to achieve high fill-factor for high-frequency PMUT arrays. Thus, a novel surface micromachining process is proposed to fabricate high fill-factor PMUT arrays with improved performance.

Download or read book High Frequency Ultrasound Transducer for Real Time Ultrasound Biomicroscopy with Optoacoustic Arrays written by Xinqing Guo and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ultrasound biomicroscopy (UBM) is a high resolution biomedical imaging technique using high frequency ultrasound waves. Fabricating highly populated detector arrays represents a major technical challenge for real-time UBM systems. A potential solution is optoacoustic technology, where high frequency ultrasound is detected with optical methods. The advantages of optoacoustic detection are large bandwidth, good sensitivity, and the capability for large scale parallel read-out. In this thesis, the receiving and transmitting part of a UBM imaging array are investigated separately. Optoacoustic detection is explored with a thin film etalon consisting of two gold films separated by a transparent layer. Simulations and experiments demonstrate that optoacoustic detection sensitivity is maximized with a gold layer thickness of 45 nm. Various transparent layer materials were investigated, including polystyrene microspheres, SU-8 2005 photoresist, and parylene. Experiments demonstrate that parylene is the best material due to its precise thickness control and uniformity. Ideally, the ultrasound transmitter and optoacoustic etalon are integrated into a single device. Piezoelectric materials are the most efficient emitters of ultrasound, but optical transparency is required to facilitate integration with an etalon. Lithium niobate (LiNbO3) is chosen for its high piezoelectricity and excellent optical transparency. Initial efforts with LiNbO3 concentrated on fabricating a "conventional" transducer that is not optically transparent. An unfocused transducer was fabricated that produces 25 MHz ultrasound with a -6 dB bandwidth of 15 MHz and a two-way insertion loss of 27.6 dB. An optically transparent LiNbO3 transducer with indium tin oxide (ITO) electrodes is currently under development. An approach to combine the optically transparent LiNbO3 emitter with an optoacoustic etalon is proposed.

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 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 A Dual mode Ultrasound System for Imaging and High Intensity Focused Ultrasound HIFU with a Single 2 D Capacitive Micromachined Ultrasonic Transducer CMUT Array written by Ji Hoon Jang and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ultrasound imaging technology has many applications for the medical field and for the public. Thanks to ultrasound imaging, parents can meet their precious child even before the baby is born. In clinical applications, ultrasound is inexpensive, portable and reveals the structure and movement of organs in real time, allowing physicians to monitor the growth and physical development of a fetus. Because there is no ionizing radiation exposure to the patient, it is a very safe technology. In addition to diagnostic applications, ultrasound has been used for therapeutic treatment. High intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) has been widely used to treat different types of tumors, including those of prostate, liver, breast, kidney, bone and pancreas because of its non-invasive and precise approach for tissue ablation. The basic concept of using HIFU is to focus continuous ultrasound at the focal point and a temperature increase beyond a certain point creates a lesion without damaging the surrounding tissue. For successful HIFU operation, it is important to have a reliable method for guidance and monitoring of the treatment such as ultrasound imaging. Most ultrasound image-guided HIFU systems need separate imaging and HIFU transducers, and require a cooling system due to properties of piezoelectric transducers such as narrow fractional bandwidth and self-heating. As an alternative, capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducers (CMUTs) have a distinctive advantage over piezoelectric transducers in respect to self-heating and a wide fractional bandwidth. Thus, CMUTs are especially beneficial in dual-mode operations where a single transducer is used for both imaging and therapy. By taking advantage of this CMUT technology, I developed a compact dual-mode ultrasound system that can perform both ultrasound imaging and HIFU with a single 2-D CMUT array. A dual-mode ultrasound probe is equipped with a dual-mode application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) and a 2-D 32x32-element CMUT array. The dual-mode ASIC consists of pulsers, transmit beamforming circuitry, and low-noise amplifiers for imaging mode and high voltage (HV) switches for HIFU mode. By turning HV switches on and off, the system can alternately operate imaging mode and HIFU mode on demand. A 2-D 32x32-element CMUT array was fabricated to have a center frequency of 5 MHz in immersion. Both ASIC and CMUT array were flip-chip bonded to a custom-designed flexible printed circuit board (flex PCB). After polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) encapsulation, the acoustic performance of the probe was evaluated. I successfully demonstrated the imaging mode of the dual-mode probe using nylon wire phantom. Using HIFU mode, I measured 7.4 MPa peak-to-peak pressure at 8 mm focal depth. To get higher pressure for the ablation, high AC and DC voltage were used, and CMUT arrays got shorted due to the insulator breakdown. With this probe, obtaining high pressure levels needed for tissue ablation was problematic with CMUTs due to device failure at high voltages. Therefore, I re-optimized a CMUT design that can produce higher output pressure without breakdown or device failure. With CMUT simulation software, the design parameters of CMUT element were optimized with a gap height of 0.13 um and a top plate thickness of 1 um. After it was fabricated and integrated, the dual-mode probe was tested again in an acoustic setup. Compared with previous results, the device shows improved performance without device failure. The focused pressure at F-1 (8 mm) was measured to 16 MPa peak-to-peak. More importantly, most of the device can produce high pressure levels reliably without device failure. Using HIFU simulation software, the specification for HIFU ablation was explored if the dual-mode probe can ablate the tissue. It shows that even with 10 MPa peak-to-peak the dual-mode probe can create the lesion. An ablation test was successfully performed on HIFU phantom gel and ex-vivo tissue using HIFU mode of the dual-mode probe. Another important evaluation as a HIFU probe was the heating of the device. While CMUT array has very low self-heating, because of the power dissipation on HV switches of dual-mode ASIC, the ASIC was heated during HIFU mode. To reduce the heating of dual-mode ASIC, the copper heat sink rod, the chiller, and the water circulation heat sink were added to the system and it significantly reduced the heating. With the thermal management system, the probe was thermally stable around the body temperature during HIFU mode and imaging mode. Lastly, I successfully demonstrated ultrasound image-guided HIFU on HIFU phantom gel with guide wires by switching between imaging mode and HIFU mode using dual-mode ultrasound system. Our studies established a dual-mode HIFU system that will improve the non invasive ablation of tissue. This work of the dual mode system certainly shows the possibility of the new treatment application that was impossible to achieve using the conventional image-guided HIFU system.

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 Diagnostic Ultrasound Imaging Inside Out written by Thomas L. Szabo and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 2013-12-05 with total page 829 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Diagnostic Ultrasound Imaging provides a unified description of the physical principles of ultrasound imaging, signal processing, systems and measurements. This comprehensive reference is a core resource for both graduate students and engineers in medical ultrasound research and design. With continuing rapid technological development of ultrasound in medical diagnosis, it is a critical subject for biomedical engineers, clinical and healthcare engineers and practitioners, medical physicists, and related professionals in the fields of signal and image processing. The book contains 17 new and updated chapters covering the fundamentals and latest advances in the area, and includes four appendices, 450 figures (60 available in color on the companion website), and almost 1,500 references. In addition to the continual influx of readers entering the field of ultrasound worldwide who need the broad grounding in the core technologies of ultrasound, this book provides those already working in these areas with clear and comprehensive expositions of these key new topics as well as introductions to state-of-the-art innovations in this field. Enables practicing engineers, students and clinical professionals to understand the essential physics and signal processing techniques behind modern imaging systems as well as introducing the latest developments that will shape medical ultrasound in the future Suitable for both newcomers and experienced readers, the practical, progressively organized applied approach is supported by hands-on MATLAB® code and worked examples that enable readers to understand the principles underlying diagnostic and therapeutic ultrasound Covers the new important developments in the use of medical ultrasound: elastography and high-intensity therapeutic ultrasound. Many new developments are comprehensively reviewed and explained, including aberration correction, acoustic measurements, acoustic radiation force imaging, alternate imaging architectures, bioeffects: diagnostic to therapeutic, Fourier transform imaging, multimode imaging, plane wave compounding, research platforms, synthetic aperture, vector Doppler, transient shear wave elastography, ultrafast imaging and Doppler, functional ultrasound and viscoelastic models

Download or read book Diagnostic Ultrasound written by K. Kirk Shung and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2005-09-19 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ultrasound imaging is one of the most important and widely used diagnostic tools in modern medicine, second only to the conventional x-ray. Although considered a mature field, research continues for improving the capabilities and finding new uses for ultrasound technology while driving down the cost of newer, more complicated procedures such as int

Download or read book Piezoelectric Micromachined Ultrasound Transducers for Air coupled Applications written by Stefon Eric Shelton and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ultrasound transducers are used for many applications including medical imaging, non-destructive testing, obstruction detection, flow sensing, and gesture recognition. Piezoelectric micromachined ultrasound transducers (PMUTs) offer an attractive alternative to traditional bulk piezoelectric ultrasonic sensors, due to their compact size, increased transduction efficiency, and integrated array configuration. In this work, the development of aluminum nitride PMUTs for air coupled use is presented. The transducer consists of a circular composite diaphragm actuated using an aluminum nitride piezoelectric layer. An equivalent circuit model for a single clamped plate PMUTs has been developed and the design equations are presented and compared with finite element method simulations and measured values. The use of an acoustic resonator tube to boost the output pressure and increase the bandwidth of micro-scale transducers is demonstrated. The developed fabrication process for AlN PMUTs is presented. Clamped plate transducers operating from 100-300 kHz are characterized in the mechanical, electrical, and acoustic domains. The output pressure of the transducers at 5 cm is 90 mPa/V and the receive sensitivity is 0.8 mV/Pa. A flexurally suspended design with increased linearity and a piston-like mode shape is presented and the effect of perforations in the membrane surface determined. Finally, fabrication of PMUT arrays and sources of frequency mismatch, including geometric and the effects of residual stress are discussed. Through process improvements, across-die frequency matching of 1.5% is achieved which is well within the 6.6% fractional bandwidth of the transducer. The array acoustic performance is quantified and the on axis pressure is found to increase linearly with the number of exited elements and the beam-width of a 2D array is 20°.

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 Medical Imaging written by and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

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 Principles of Medical Imaging written by K. Kirk Shung and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 2012-12-02 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the early 1960's, the field of medical imaging has experienced explosive growth due to the development of three new imaging modalities-radionuclide imaging, ultrasound, and magnetic resonance imaging. Along with X-ray, they are among the most important clinical diagnostic tools in medicine today. Additionally, the digital revolution has played a major role in this growth, with advances in computer and digital technology and in electronics making fast data acquisition and mass data storage possible. This text provides an introduction to the physics and instrumentation of the four most often used medical imaging techniques. Each chapter includes a discussion of recent technological developments and the biological effects of the imaging modality. End-of-chapter problem sets, lists of relevant references, and suggested further reading are presented for each technique. X-ray imaging, including CT and digital radiography Radionuclide imaging, including SPECT and PET Ultrasound imaging Magnetic resonance imaging

Download or read book Transducers and Arrays for Underwater Sound written by Charles Sherman and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2007-01-05 with total page 610 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The most comprehensive book on electroacoustic transducers and arrays for underwater sound Includes transducer modeling techniques and transducer designs that are currently in use Includes discussion and analysis of array interaction and nonlinear effects in transducers Contains extensive data in figures and tables needed in transducer and array design Written at a level that will be useful to students as well as to practicing engineers and scientists

Download or read book Ultrasound in Food Processing written by Mar Villamiel and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2017-04-25 with total page 764 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Part I: Fundamentals of ultrasound This part will cover the main basic principles of ultrasound generation and propagation and those phenomena related to low and high intensity ultrasound applications. The mechanisms involved in food analysis and process monitoring and in food process intensification will be shown. Part II: Low intensity ultrasound applications Low intensity ultrasound applications have been used for non-destructive food analysis as well as for process monitoring. Ultrasonic techniques, based on velocity, attenuation or frequency spectrum analysis, may be considered as rapid, simple, portable and suitable for on-line measurements. Although industrial applications of low-intensity ultrasound, such as meat carcass evaluation, have been used in the food industry for decades, this section will cover the most novel applications, which could be considered as highly relevant for future application in the food industry. Chapters addressing this issue will be divided into three subsections: (1) food control, (2) process monitoring, (3) new trends. Part III: High intensity ultrasound applications High intensity ultrasound application constitutes a way to intensify many food processes. However, the efficient generation and application of ultrasound is essential to achieving a successful effect. This part of the book will begin with a chapter dealing with the importance of the design of efficient ultrasonic application systems. The medium is essential to achieve efficient transmission, and for that reason the particular challenges of applying ultrasound in different media will be addressed. The next part of this section constitutes an up-to-date vision of the use of high intensity ultrasound in food processes. The chapters will be divided into four sections, according to the medium in which the ultrasound vibration is transmitted from the transducers to the product being treated. Thus, solid, liquid, supercritical and gas media have been used for ultrasound propagation. Previous books addressing ultrasonic applications in food processing have been based on the process itself, so chapters have been divided in mass and heat transport, microbial inactivation, etc. This new book will propose a revolutionary overview of ultrasonic applications based on (in the authors’ opinion) the most relevant factor affecting the efficiency of ultrasound applications: the medium in which ultrasound is propagated. Depending on the medium, ultrasonic phenomena can be completely different, but it also affects the complexity of the ultrasonic generation, propagation and application. In addition, the effect of high intensity ultrasound on major components of food, such as proteins, carbohydrates and lipids will be also covered, since this type of information has not been deeply studied in previous books. Other aspects related to the challenges of food industry to incorporate ultrasound devices will be also considered. This point is also very important since, in the last few years, researchers have made huge efforts to integrate fully automated and efficient ultrasound systems to the food production lines but, in some cases, it was not satisfactory. In this sense, it is necessary to identify and review the main related problems to efficiently produce and transmit ultrasound, scale-up, reduce cost, save energy and guarantee the production of safe, healthy and high added value foods.