Increasing Performances of 1–3 Piezocomposite Ultrasonic Transducer by Alternating Current Poling Method

Abstract

Ultrasonic transducers are the basic core component of diagnostic imaging devices, wherein the piezoelectric materials are the active element of transducers. Recent studies showed that the alternating current poling (ACP) method could develop the properties of piezocomposites, which had great potential to improve transducer performance. Herein, transducers (fc = 3 MHz) made of DCP and ACP 1–3 piezocomposites (prepared by PZT-5H ceramics and PMN-PT single crystals) were fabricated. The effect of the ACP method on the bandwidth and insertion loss (sensitivity) was explored. The results indicate that the ACP method can significantly enhance the bandwidth and slightly increase the insertion loss of transducers. Particularly, a superhigh bandwidth of 142.8% was achieved in the transducer of ACP 1–3 PMN-PT single crystal combined with suitable matching and backing layers. This bandwidth is higher than that of all reported transducers with similar center frequency. Moreover, the optimization mechanism of transducer performance by the ACP method was discussed. The obtained results suggested that the ACP is an effective and convenient technology to improve transducer performances, especially for the bandwidth.

Editorial for the Special Issue on Piezoelectric Transducers: Materials, Devices and Applications, Volume III

“…For instance, in reference [17], the authors effectively solved the problem of the low compensation accuracy of the nonlinear start-up error characteristics of a piezoelectric actuator under open-loop control of nanopositioning stages. Additionally, a contribution about piezocomposites for ultrasonic transducers is included in this Special Issue, providing an effective strategy for the collaborative optimization of the bandwidth and sensitivity of transducers, further guiding the design of high-performance ultrasonic transducers used in medical diagnosis [18]. The determination of the piezoelectric coefficients of MEMS devices was studied in [19], which describes a method for the characterization of piezoelectric films supporting the design and simulation of ScAlN-based piezoelectric MEMS devices with enhanced electromechanical properties.…”