Piezoelectric Micromachined Ultrasonic
Transducers for Photoacoustic Imaging: Modeling
and Simulation of Structural Parameters on
Receive Performance

• Authors: Qi Xu , Bingzhang Chen , Pengye Li , Jin Liu , Dakun Lai
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

Introduction: Although many piezoelectric micromachined
ultrasonic transducers (pMUTs) with different
structures have been presented and fabricated for photoacoustic
imaging (PAI), most of them are lack of systemic
analysis and optimizations of design parameters.
It is of important to explore the internal physical mechanisms
and corresponding cause-effect relationships of the
receive performance of pMUTs with different structures.
The purpose of this study is to present a novel numerical
method for an efficient design of the AlN-based pMUT for
application in PAI system.
Methods: A planar and two curved (dome-shaped and
concave) structures of pMUTs based on aluminum nitride
(AlN) were modeled numerically in this study. For each
pMUT, the performance of receive sensitivity was simulated
systemically using the finite elements analysis (FEA).
Moreover, the physical parameters of three structureswere
analyzed in detail, such as the radius of curvature, the
height of SiO2, the height of AlN and the height of polyimide.
Results: The obtained results show that the receive performance
of three structures in water or air could be ordered
as: the dome-shaped > the concave > the planar. Further,
several valuable findings of this study would be used to
design pMUTs so as to achieve better receive performance,
such as: (a) for an optimum radius of curvature almost exists
for any curved pMUT, (b) a thinner supporting layer
means a better receive performance, (c) the piezoelectric
layer in three structures have an optimum thickness, and
(d) the height of polyimide affects little the receive performance
in all structures.
Conclusions: For a pMUT-based ultrasound sensor in photoacoustic
imaging (PAI), the dome-shaped pMUT has a
better receive sensitivity than that of the planar structure
and the concave structure, whose physical parameters
combining the work frequency could be optimized efficiently with a numerical method.

Keywords

EN

pMUT; photoacoustic imaging; finite elementanalysis; receive sensitivity

• Publisher: De Gruyter Open
• Journal: X-Acoustics: Imaging and Sensing
• Year: 2014
• Volume: 1
• Issue: 1

Dates

accepted

20 - 5 - 2015

received

21 - 1 - 2015

online

23 - 11 - 2015

Contributors

author

Qi Xu

• School of Physical Electronics,
  University of Electronic Science and Technology of China,
  Chengdu, China 610054

author

Bingzhang Chen

• School of Physical Electronics,
  University of Electronic Science and Technology of China,
  Chengdu, China 610054

author

Pengye Li

• School of Physical Electronics,
  University of Electronic Science and Technology of China,
  Chengdu, China 610054

author

Jin Liu

• School of Physical Electronics,
  University of Electronic Science and Technology of China,
  Chengdu, China 610054

author

Dakun Lai

• School of Physical Electronics,
  University of Electronic Science and Technology of China,
  Chengdu, China 610054
• Center for Information in BioMedicine, University of Electronic
  Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China 610054

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Identifiers

DOI

10.1515/phto-2015-0007