Project Details

[Return to Previous Page]

Fabrication and characterization of conductive acoustic layers for medical ultrasound transducers

Company: Philips

Major(s):
Primary: MATSE
Secondary: BME
Optional: EE, ME

Non-Disclosure Agreement: YES

Intellectual Property: YES

Overview Current medical ultrasound transduces follow the Langevin (Sandwich) design, in which the piezoelectric, matching and backing layers need to be carefully processed and characterized. The thickness and material properties of each layer are critical to the performance of the transducer. Cutting edge transducers rely on custom materials with unique properties to advance the state of the art in medical imaging. Objectives The objective for this project is to explore novel acoustic materials, in terms of looking into different formulation of conductive composites with less conductive fillers, fabricating new materials, evaluating mechanical, electrical and acoustic properties. Depending on the results, the new materials built by the students could be built into transducers or allow the students to optimize the materials design and repeat fabrication & characterization. Approach Students will need to - Research medical transducer materials and transducer design - Design the formulation of acoustic materials using various conductive particles, additives, polymers and etc. - Fabricate materials based on the designs. - Characterize the mechanical, electrical and acoustic properties using our lab equipments, e.g. MTS mechanical testing machine, LCR electronics, scanning acoustic microscope and etc. - Optimize the design based on the testing results. Outcomes - The students will not only understand how modern medical transducer arrays are designed and manufactured, but also quantitively design and test new, novel materials. - Collaborate with a team of top-notch engineers to gain hands-on lab experience of material fabrication and test, which can be potentially made into medical transducers that touches millions of people’s lives.