e-journal
Bimorph Piezoelectric Micromachined Ultrasonic Transducers
Abstract—This paper presents the concept, basic theory, fabrication, and testing results of dual-electrode bimorph piezoelectric micromachined ultrasonic transducers (pMUTs) for both air- and liquid-coupled applications. Both the theoretical analyses and experimental verifications under the proposed differential drive scheme display high drive sensitivity and an electromechanical coupling energy efficiency that is as high as 4× of the state-of-the-art pMUT with a similar geometry
and frequency. The prototype transducers are fabricated in a CMOS-compatible process with the radii of 100–230 μm using aluminum nitride as the piezoelectric layers with the thicknesses varying from 715 to 950 nm and molybdenum (Mo) as the electrodes with a thickness of 130 nm. The tested operation
frequencies of the prototype transducers are 200–970 kHz in air for possible ranging and motion detection applications, and from 250 kHz to 1 MHz in water for medical ultrasound applications
such as fracture healing, tumor ablation, and transcranial sonothrombolysis. A 12 × 12 array structure is measured to have the highest intensity per voltage squared, per number of pMUTs squared, and per piezoelectric constant squared ( In = I/(VNd31)2) among all reported pMUT arrays. The generated
acoustic intensity is in the range of 30–70 mW/cm2 up to 2.5 mm from the transducer surface in mineral oil with a driving voltage of 5 Vac, which is suitable for battery-powered therapeutic ultrasound devices. [2015-0305]
Index Terms—Piezoelectric micromachined ultrasonic transducers, piezoelectric micromachined ultrasonic transducer (pMUT), bimorph, bimorph pMUT, pMUT array.
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