A harmonic cancellation technique for an ultrasound transducer excited by a switched-mode power converter

The aim of this study is to evaluate the feasibility of using harmonic cancellation for a therapeutic ultrasound transducer excited by a switched-mode power converter without an additional output filter. A switching waveform without the third harmonic was created by cascading two switched-mode power inverter modules at which their output waveforms were pi/3 phase-shifted from each other. A PSPICE simulation model for the power converter output stage was developed. The simulated results were in good agreement with the measurement. The waveform and harmonic contents of the acoustic pressure generated by a 1-MHz, self-focused piezoelectric transducer with and without harmonic cancellation have been evaluated. Measured results indicated that the acoustic third harmonic- to-fundamental ratio at the focus was small (-48 dB) with harmonic cancellation, compared to that without harmonic cancellation ( -20 dB). The measured acoustic levels of the fifth harmonic for both cases with and without harmonic cancellation also were small (-46 dB) compared to the fundamental. This study shows that it is viable to drive a piezoelectric ultrasound transducer using a switched-mode power converter without the requirement of an additional output filter in many high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) applications.