Comparisons of a new material PNN-PT-PZ with PZT arrays for medical ultrasound transducers by finite element analysis

Bandwidth and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) are the two fundamental parameters which govern the performance and quality of medical ultrasound images. To improve theses parameters as compared to conventional PZT material, a new material PNN-PT-PZ in the ceramic family with k=0.8 has been proposed for medical ultrasound transducers. Finite element analysis (FEA) has been performed for both the materials PZT-5H and PNN-PT-PZ, considering 2 MHz 1-D linear array with single matching layer and water as boundary condition. The array parameters have been optimized to obtain maximum bandwidth. The pulse echo results of the FEA shows that there is an increase in fractional bandwidth (@-6dB) from 60.76% for the PZT to 79.76% for the PNN-PT-PZ transducer element. In addition badness has been found to be decreased by a factor of 1.41 for the proposed transducer material as compared to conventional PZT-5H transducer