Biomedical Ultrasonics

Ultrasound has been widely investigated as a form of radiant energy for bio-medical applications. Both diagnostic and therapeutic techniques have been proposed and studied. Perhaps the greatest effort has been directed toward the development of techniques for imaging internal tissue structures for medical diagnostic purposes. All such techniques are dependent upon both transmitting and receiving transducers for radiating and detecting the ultrasound energy. Indeed, in most of the pulse-echo ultrasound imaging that has been accomplished, the transducer characteristics have been the limiting factor in determining the image resolution and dynamic range that can be achieved. The nature of these limitations and some possibilities for reducing or overcoming them will be discussed.