Ultrasound quality assurance phantoms and characterization for high frequency transducers

Ultrasound phantoms are used as a quality assurance mechanism for assessing the imaging performance of ultrasound transducers. Several phantoms have been fabricated specifically for imaging by means of high frequency transducers with a center frequency ranging from 20 to 100 MHz. To quantify the transducers' imaging performance the spatial resolution, dead zone, linear fidelity, depth of penetration and image uniformity are measured from ultrasound images created by scanning specially designed phantoms. Eight micron diameter tungsten (high acoustic reflectivity and diameter size less than lambda/2) wire targets are used for all the phantoms. Transducer characterization consists of a standard pulse echo analysis and insertion loss measurement for each transducer. Imaging of quality assurance phantoms and transducer characterization provide a practical means for evaluating the performance of high frequency transducers.