An ultrasonic transducer includes first and second acoustic transducers and a housing with a bottomed tubular shape. The second acoustic transducer includes an annular section supporting a second membrane section and contacting an entire periphery of the second membrane section, and an acoustic matching plate facing the second membrane section and spaced apart from the second membrane section. The acoustic matching plate is connected to a surrounding wall portion defining a sealed space with the housing. An ultrasonic transmission path sandwiched between the first membrane section and the second membrane section is provided in the sealed space. A maximum inner width of the ultrasonic transmission path is smaller than a maximum inner width of the surrounding wall portion.

Methods for improving the electromechanical coupling coefficient and bandwidth of micromachined ultrasonic transducers, or MUTs, are presented as well as methods of manufacture of the MUTs improved by the presented methods.

An ultrasound probe for inspecting a component at a temperature above 150 C. includes a shoe that makes contact with the component and an ultrasonic transducer. The transducer includes a probe body defining an internal volume having a body length, the probe body further defining an aperture and a disc of piezoelectric material placed in the aperture, the disc having a front side making contact with the shoe, the disc having an acoustic impedance which includes between 7 MRayl and 25 MRayl and a Curie temperature above 250 C. The transducer also includes a damper fastened to the back side of the disc and extending from the back side into the internal volume for a damper length smaller than the body length.

A miniature rangefinder includes a housing, a micromachined ultrasonic transducer, and signal processing circuitry. The housing includes a substrate and a lid. The housing has one or more apertures and the micromachined ultrasonic transducer is mounted over an aperture. The micromachined ultrasonic transducer may function as both a transmitter and a receiver. An integrated circuit is configured to drive the transducer to transmit an acoustic signal, detect a return signal, and determine a time of flight between emitting the acoustic signal and detecting the return signal.

A piezoelectric micromachined ultrasound transducer (PMUT) device has different transduction efficiency at different portions of the PMUT device depending on design characteristics such as materials, material thicknesses, and shape. A metal layer of the PMUT device is patterned to render certain portions of the piezoelectric layer of the PMUT device inactive. Only the active portions of the piezoelectric layer are utilized for transmission and reception of ultrasonic signals, while overall PMUT device capacitance is reduced due to the lack of an active capacitor in the inactive region(s) of the PMUT device, resulting in a PMUT design with increased sensitivity. For differential PMUT devices, the patterning may be performed to match capacitances associated with the differential piezoelectric regions.

A miniature rangefinder includes a housing, a micromachined ultrasonic transducer, and signal processing circuitry. The housing includes a substrate and a lid. The housing has one or more apertures and the micromachined ultrasonic transducer is mounted over an aperture. The micromachined ultrasonic transducer may function as both a transmitter and a receiver. An integrated circuit is configured to drive the transducer to transmit an acoustic signal, detect a return signal, and determine a time of flight between emitting the acoustic signal and detecting the return signal.

A transducer configured to be used in a downhole tool includes a radiating face to emit or receive an acoustic signal, a front electrode, a central layer behind the front electrode, and a back electrode behind the central layer, having a back face coupled to a backing material. The central layer has a substantially constant thickness throughout and includes a piezo-composite body and an insulating material. A configuration between the piezo-composite body and the insulating material variably reduces the central layer to reduce generation of side lobes.

Provided is a vibrator and an ultrasonic motor that are capable of exhibiting a sufficient drive speed even when a lead-free piezoelectric ceramics is used. The ultrasonic motor includes an annular vibrator and an annular moving member arranged so as to be brought into pressure-contact with the vibrator. The vibrator includes an annular vibrating plate and an annular piezoelectric element. The piezoelectric element includes an annular piezoelectric ceramic piece, a common electrode arranged on one surface of the piezoelectric ceramic piece, and a plurality of electrodes arranged on the other surface of the piezoelectric ceramic piece. The piezoelectric ceramic piece contains lead in a content of less than 1,000 ppm. The plurality of electrodes include two drive phase electrodes, at least one non-drive phase electrode, and at least one detection phase electrode.

The present invention relates to a hybrid beamforming device for ultrasound therapy, and an operating method therefor, the device using tile chips, which include circularly arranged semiconductor ultrasound chips, so as to be capable of modular beam focusing, and comprising: tile chips including circularly arranged semiconductor ultrasound chips formed from a plurality of annular array channels, and a control unit, which links with multi-focusing of annular arrays in the depth direction caused by beamforming of the tile chips, so as to control the position of the tile chips, and thus focus, at a target point, ultrasound beams generated at the tile chips.

The teachings of the present disclosure enable the manufacture of one or more piezoelectric micromachined ultrasonic transducers (PMUTs) having a resonant frequency of a specific target value and/or substantially matched resonant frequencies. In accordance with the present disclosure, a flexible membrane of a PMUT is modified to impart a desired parameter profile for stiffness and/or mass to tune its resonant frequency to a target value. The desired parameter profile is achieved by locally removing or adding material to regions of one or more layers of the flexible membrane to alter its geometric dimensions and/or density. In some embodiments, material is added or removed non-uniformly across the structural layer to realize a material distribution that more strongly affects membrane stiffness than mass. In some embodiments, material having a specific residual stress is added to, and/or removed from, the membrane to define a desired modal stiffness for the membrane.