In this paper, the development of a 35 MHz 64-channel Piezoelectric Composite based Micromachined Ultrasound Transducer (PCMUT) phased array for NDE ultrasound application is presented. A 35 MHz PMN-PT single crystal 1-3 composite based PC-MUT phased array was designed with extensive acoustic field and 1D modeling. The initial modeling results demonstrated that the focused detection resolution (10% of -3 dB beam width) could be as small as 30 μm in the azimuth direction. The maximum imaging depth for ceramic samples is around 20 mm. The PC-MUT array being developed will extend the state-of-art NDE phased array technology from approximately 20 MHz to 35 MHz, which will greatly enhance the imaging resolution for a broad range of NDE ultrasound applications.

Date Published: 8 April 2009
PDF: 8 pages
Proc. SPIE 7294, Nondestructive Characterization for Composite Materials, Aerospace Engineering, Civil Infrastructure, and Homeland Security 2009, 729403 (8 April 2009); doi: 10.1117/12.815621

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 7294:
Nondestructive Characterization for Composite Materials, Aerospace Engineering, Civil Infrastructure, and Homeland Security 2009
H. Felix Wu; Aaron A. Diaz; Peter J. Shull; Dietmar W. Vogel, Editor(s)