Analysis and development of piezoelectric composites for medical ultrasound transducer applications

Over the past several years 1-3 piezoelectric composites have become increasingly important in medical ultrasound transducer applications. A substantial body of literature has been written regarding construction techniques, predicted and measured performance, and applications. Still, several important issues remain to be answered which are of importance to transducer designers. This thesis deals with several of those issues and presents new conceptual and computational tools specifically related to the design of piezoelectric composites for transducers used in medical imaging.;The important topic of the symmetry of stopband edge resonance modes is investigated by use of an exact one-dimensional solution for infinite 2-2 composites. A simple conceptual model relating the stopband structure to the resonance of the individual components is presented and a computationally simple and accurate means of calculating stopband edge resonance frequencies is developed. The techniques are used to investigate the behavior of some composites with double periodicities.;Effective medium theories are reviewed and calculations are compared to experimental results. A matrix version of the theory is used to calculate the slowness diagrams for a 1-3 composite and to investigate the design trade-offs which must be made in optimizing composite performance.;A novel composite is proposed which consists of free-standing piezoelectric posts surrounded on the sides by air and bounded on front and back by stiff layers. Potential performance improvements and problems are presented. Experimental results showing excellent bandwidth and pulse length but only moderate sensitivity are given along with a proposed explanation for the results. Proposals for further work are suggested.