Development of a 20-MHz wide-bandwidth PMN-PT single crystal phased-array ultrasound transducer

In this study, a 20-MHz 64-element phased-array ultrasound transducer with a one-wavelength pitch is developed using a PMN-30%PT single crystal and double-matching layer scheme. High piezoelectric (d(33) > 1000 pC/N) and electromechanical coupling (k(33) > 0.8) properties of the single crystal with an optimized fabrication process involving the photolithography technique have been demonstrated to be suitable for wide-bandwidth (>= 70%) and high-sensitivity (insertion loss <= 30 dB) phased-array transducer application. A -6 dB bandwidth of 91% and an insertion loss of 29 dB for the 20-MHz 64-element phased-array transducer were achieved. This result shows that the bandwidth is improved comparing with the investigated high-frequency (>= 20 MHz) ultrasound transducers using piezoelectric ceramic and single crystal materials. It shows that this phased-array transducer has potential to improve the resolution of biomedical imaging, theoretically. Based on the hypothesis of resolution improvement, this phased-array transducer is capable for small animal (i.e. mouse and zebrafish) studies. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.