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Transmission ultrasound is not in widespread use, partially because of the time and expense of acquiring the data. We are addressing this problem with an optically parallel ultrasound sensor. The core of the sensor is a thin silicon nitride membrane patterned with gold to create "acoustic pixels" over a large area. Each acoustic pixel vibrates at the frequency of the acoustic excitation. The thin membrane, supported by short wails over an optical substrate, with one side immersed in the ultrasound medium and the supported side exposed to air, flexes when an ultrasound pressure wave encounters it. This flexing causes the air gap between the optical substrate and the membrane to change. The change in the air gap modulates the reflection of an optical beam by frustrated total internal reflection. By strobing the optical beam, the deflection of the membrane can be detected and measured at any point through the acoustic period. Acquiring a sequence of images allow us to extract the relative pressure phase and amplitude. Proof of principle experiments have shown that we can build this sensor, and we are currently using a small aperture version to examine simple test objects.keywords: Optical MEMS, ultrasound, transmission imaging.

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