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.

The present disclosure provides a transducer support, ultrasound probe, and ultrasound imaging apparatus. The ultrasound transducer support includes a first layer having first areas in which heat transfer materials are arranged and second areas in which sound absorbent materials are arranged, the first and second areas being arranged alternately; and a second layer having third areas located below the first areas in which sound absorbent materials are arranged and fourth areas located below the second areas in which heat transfer materials are arranged.

Systems are provided for the arrangement of decoupled electric and acoustic modules for a transducer array of an ultrasound probe. In one embodiment, the decoupled modules are independently coupled to a flex interconnect, apart from one another, allowing for electric communication between all modules through the flex interconnect. As one example, an ultrasound transducer array for an ultrasound probe comprises an acoustic backing, a flex interconnect coupled to the backing at a first surface of the flex interconnect, a matrix acoustic array coupled to a second surface of the flex interconnect, the second surface opposite the first surface, and an electric module coupled to the second surface of the flex interconnect at a location spaced away from where the matrix acoustic array is coupled to the flex interconnect.

Bulk Acoustic Wave (BAW) resonators that include a modified outside stack portion and methods for fabricating such BAW resonators are provided. One BAW resonator includes a reflector, a bottom electrode, a piezoelectric layer, and a top electrode. An active region is formed where the top electrode overlaps the bottom electrode and an outside region surrounds the active region. The piezoelectric layer includes a top surface adjacent to the top electrode and a bottom surface adjacent to the bottom electrode. The piezoelectric layer further includes an outside piezoelectric portion in the outside region with a bottom surface in the outside region that is an extension of the bottom surface of the piezoelectric layer, and the outside piezoelectric portion includes an angled sidewall that resides in the outside region and extends from the top surface of the piezoelectric layer to the bottom surface of the outside piezoelectric portion in the outside region.

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.

The present invention provides a flexible ultrasound transducer (1) for an ultrasound monitoring system for examining a curved object. The ultrasound transducer (1) comprises an integrated circuit structure (7) and a multi-layered structure (2), said multi-layered structure (2) comprising an array (3) of ultrasound transducing elements (3a) arranged in a first layer structure (4) and configured for generating ultrasonic energy propagating along a main transducer axis Z and an array (5) of control circuits (5a) arranged in a second layer structure (6), and wherein the array (5) of control circuits and the integrated circuit structure (7) are configured for operating the array (3) of ultrasound transducing elements in said first layer structure (4), Further, the multi-layered structure (2) comprises at least one flexible layer (8, 9) arranged so that the bending flexibility of the multi-layered structure (2) permits the ultrasound transducer (1) to form a continuous contact with said curved object during operation.

An ultrasonic device that transmits and receives ultrasonic waves includes: ultrasonic elements including first and second surfaces from which the ultrasonic waves are emitted; and a backing unit that supports the second surfaces of the ultrasonic elements and attenuates the ultrasonic waves emitted to the second surface side. The backing unit has slits inclined in a thickness direction. The ultrasonic elements are arranged in the shape of an array, and the slits are arranged at distances equal to an arrangement distance between the ultrasonic elements arranged in the shape of an array.

A solidly mounted resonator structure includes an multi-layer acoustic reflector structure and a piezoelectric material layer arranged between the first and second electrode structures to form an active region, with the acoustic reflector structure providing enhanced reflection of shear and longitudinal modes of acoustic vibrations. The solidly mounted resonator structure is configured for transduction of an acoustic wave including a longitudinal component and a shear component. The acoustic reflector structure includes multiple sequentially arranged differential acoustic impedance layer units each including a low acoustic impedance material layer in contact with a high acoustic impedance material layer. A frequency corresponding to a minimum transmissivity of a second harmonic resonance of a longitudinal response is substantially matched to a frequency corresponding to a minimum transmissivity of a third harmonic resonance of a shear response.

In one embodiment, a device includes at least one transducer configured to vibrate within a first frequency range to generate a signal audible by a wearer of the device. The device includes the first material, which has an acoustic impedance at one or more frequencies within the first frequency range that is substantially similar to an acoustic impedance of the wearer's skin at the one or more frequencies. The device includes a second material that has an acoustic impedance at one or more frequencies within the first frequency range that substantially differs from an acoustic impedance of an environment of the device.

A method for manufacturing an ultrasound transducer includes a first step of manufacturing a wiring layer by arranging insulating fibers on conductive threads, a second step of electrically connecting one end of the plurality of conductive threads to a transducer array unit, a third step of providing a first backing material after providing a second backing material so that at least connection sites between the transducer array unit and the conductive threads are embedded, and a fourth step of curing the first backing material so as to fix the transducer array unit and the wiring layer.