Paper Published in IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control

Xiang Li, Wei Wu, Youngsoo Chung, Wan Y. Shih, Wei-Heng Shih, Qifa Zhou, and K. Kirk Shung’s latest paper, titled “80-MHz Intravascular Ultrasound Transducer Using PMN-PT Free-Standing Film,” has been published online in IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control.

From the abstract: “[Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3]0.63[PbTiO3]0.37 (PMN-PT) free-standing film of comparable piezoelectric properties to bulk material with thickness of 30 μm has been fabricated using a modified precursor coating approach. At 1 kHz, the dielectric permittivity and loss were 4364 and 0.033, respectively. The remnant polarization and coercive field were 28 μ C/cm2 and 18.43 kV/cm. The electromechanical coupling coefficient kt was measured to be 0.55, which was close to that of bulk PMN-PT single-crystal material. Based on this film, high-frequency (82 MHz) miniature ultrasonic transducers were fabricated with 65% bandwidth and 23 dB insertion loss. Axial and lateral resolutions were determined to be as high as 35 and 176 μ m. In vitro intravascular imaging on healthy rabbit aorta was performed using the thin film transducers. In comparison with a 35-MHz IVUS transducer, the 80-MHz transducer showed superior resolution and contrast with satisfactory penetration depth. The imaging results suggest that PMN-PT free-standing thin film technology is a feasible and efficient way to fabricate very-high-frequency ultrasonic transducers.”

The paper can be viewed directly here. [View PDF]