Absolute sensitivity limits of various ultrasonic transducers

Author

Boltz, E.S. ; Fortunko, C.M.

Author_Institution

Div. of Mater. Reliability, Nat. Inst. of Stand. & Technol., Gaithersburg, MD, USA

Volume

2

fYear

1995

fDate

7-10 Nov 1995

Firstpage

951

Abstract

We compare the calculated and measured sensitivities of wide-band, ultrasonic transducers: optical interferometers, air-coupled capacitive transducers, electromagnetic acoustic transducers (EMATs), and contact piezoelectric transducers. In the case of ideal (lossless) sensors we find that air-coupled, EMAT and contact piezoelectric sensors all exhibit increased sensitivities over that of optical transducers. We then describe a procedure for measuring such sensitivity limits and validate the procedure by determining the sensitivity limit of a contact piezoelectric transducer

Keywords

acoustic transducers; capacitance measurement; displacement measurement; light interferometers; piezoelectric transducers; sensitivity; thermal noise; ultrasonic transducers; 100 kHz to 2 MHz; absolute sensitivity limits; air-coupled capacitive transducers; contact piezoelectric transducers; electromagnetic acoustic transducers; ideal lossless sensors; minimum detectable surface displacement; optical interferometers; thermal displacement noise; thermal limits; wideband ultrasonic transducers; Acoustic measurements; Acoustic sensors; Acoustic transducers; Electromagnetic measurements; Optical interferometry; Optical sensors; Piezoelectric transducers; Ultra wideband technology; Ultrasonic transducers; Ultrasonic variables measurement;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Ultrasonics Symposium, 1995. Proceedings., 1995 IEEE

Conference_Location

Seattle, WA

ISSN

1051-0117

Print_ISBN

0-7803-2940-6

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ULTSYM.1995.495721

Filename

495721