Transmission ultrasound computed tomography using a PE-CMOS sensor array: a preliminary animal study

A preliminary study of a transmission ultrasound computed tomography system based on a piezoelectric material coated complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (PE-CMOS) array is presented. The ultrasound imaging system consists of a 5 MHz plane wave transducer, an acoustic compound lens, a PE-CMOS two-dimensional sensor array (model I-100, Imperium Inc., MD), and a micro stepping motor. The array is composed of 128 by 128 elements with 100 microns center-to-center spacing. An ultrasound CT study for a real tissue sample was performed by using the micro stepping motor to control rotation of the test target and 400 ultrasound attenuation images were acquired in a 180 degree rotation (0.45 degree per step). We collected the corresponding transmission views in each receiving line to form a sinogram for all 400 images. The ultrasound CT results were then reconstructed using the filtered backprojection method with a scattering compensation technique