TY - JOUR
T1 - A Novel Matching Layer Design for Improving the Performance of Transparent Ultrasound Transducers
AU - Osman, Mohamed S.
AU - Chen, Haoyang
AU - Creamer, Kevin
AU - Minotto, Josiah
AU - Liu, Jinyun
AU - Mirg, Shubham
AU - Christian, Johnny
AU - Bai, Xianglong
AU - Agrawal, Sumit
AU - Kothapalli, Sri Rajasekhar
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 1986-2012 IEEE.
PY - 2022/9/1
Y1 - 2022/9/1
N2 - Transparent ultrasound transducer (TUT) technology allows easy co-alignment of optical and acoustic beams in the development of compact photoacoustic imaging (PAI) devices with minimum acoustic coupling. However, TUTs suffer from narrow bandwidth and low pulse-echo sensitivity due to the lack of suitable transparent acoustic matching and backing layers. Here, we studied translucent glass beads (GB) in transparent epoxy as an acoustic matching layer for the transparent lithium niobate piezoelectric material-based TUTs (LN-TUTs). The acoustic and optical properties of various volume fractions of GB matching layers were studied using theoretical calculations, simulations, and experiments. These results demonstrated that the GB matching layer has significantly enhanced the pulse-echo sensitivity and bandwidth of the TUTs. Moreover, the GB matching layer served as a light diffuser to help achieve uniform optical fluence on the tissue surface and also improved the photoacoustic (PA) signal bandwidth. The proposed GB matching layer fabrication is low cost, easy to manufacture using conventional ultrasound transducer fabrication tools, acoustically compatible with soft tissue, and minimizes the use of the acoustic coupling medium.
AB - Transparent ultrasound transducer (TUT) technology allows easy co-alignment of optical and acoustic beams in the development of compact photoacoustic imaging (PAI) devices with minimum acoustic coupling. However, TUTs suffer from narrow bandwidth and low pulse-echo sensitivity due to the lack of suitable transparent acoustic matching and backing layers. Here, we studied translucent glass beads (GB) in transparent epoxy as an acoustic matching layer for the transparent lithium niobate piezoelectric material-based TUTs (LN-TUTs). The acoustic and optical properties of various volume fractions of GB matching layers were studied using theoretical calculations, simulations, and experiments. These results demonstrated that the GB matching layer has significantly enhanced the pulse-echo sensitivity and bandwidth of the TUTs. Moreover, the GB matching layer served as a light diffuser to help achieve uniform optical fluence on the tissue surface and also improved the photoacoustic (PA) signal bandwidth. The proposed GB matching layer fabrication is low cost, easy to manufacture using conventional ultrasound transducer fabrication tools, acoustically compatible with soft tissue, and minimizes the use of the acoustic coupling medium.
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U2 - 10.1109/TUFFC.2022.3195998
DO - 10.1109/TUFFC.2022.3195998
M3 - Article
C2 - 35921343
AN - SCOPUS:85135760244
SN - 0885-3010
VL - 69
SP - 2672
EP - 2680
JO - IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control
JF - IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control
IS - 9
ER -