Feasibility of Top-Orthogonal-to-Bottom Electrode (TOBE) 2D CMUT arrays for low-channel-count 3D imaging

Author

Zemp, Roger J. ; Wei Zheng ; Peiyu Zhang

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., Univ. of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada

fYear

2011

fDate

18-21 Oct. 2011

Firstpage

498

Lastpage

502

Abstract

Capacitive micromachined ultrasound transducers (CMUTs) offer many potential advantages over piezoelectric transducers, and hold promise for cost-effective 2D arrays. Fully-wired 2D arrays are cost-prohibitive due to large channel counts. We present what we call Top-Orthogonal-to-Bottom Electrode (TOBE) 2D CMUT arrays with the potential to perform 3D imaging with an N×N 2D array using only N transmit channels and N receive channels. Candidate fabrication technologies are discussed and a modified sacrificial release process is used to fabricate a prototype. Performance of two imaging schemes is discussed.

Keywords

capacitive sensors; image sensors; microelectrodes; micromachining; microsensors; piezoelectric transducers; sensor arrays; N receive channel; N transmit channel; NxN 2D array; TOBE 2D CMUT array; capacitive micromachined ultrasound transducer; fully-wired 2D array; low-channel-count 3D imaging scheme; modified sacrificial release process; piezoelectric transducer; top-orthogonal-to-bottom electrode 2D CMUT array; Electrodes; Etching; Fabrication; Focusing; Strips; Ultrasonic imaging; 2D arrays; 3D ultrasound imaging; CMUTs; MEMS;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Ultrasonics Symposium (IUS), 2011 IEEE International

Conference_Location

Orlando, FL

ISSN

1948-5719

Print_ISBN

978-1-4577-1253-1

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ULTSYM.2011.0120

Filename

6293609