Micromachining techniques in developing high frequency piezoelectric composite ultrasound array transducers

The Series of micromachining techniques have systematically been developed in this paper for fabrication of high frequency piezoelectric composite ultrasonic array transducers. According to the specific requirements in different stages of production of array transducers, different micromachining techniques are employed in fabricating piezoelectric active material, attaching backing material to the transducer, and making an electric interconnection board for array elements electric connection. To prove the feasibility, a PMN-PT/epoxy 1-3 composite array transducer, which includes 2-dimensional array elements and annular array elements, was designed and produced, which has 64 2-D elements and 5 ring elements with the frequency of 60 MHz. The experimental results of some key parameters proved that the developed processing methods can be applied in producing high frequency ultrasound array transducers.