2D array transducer with a conductive backing

A new conductive backing has been developed to improve transducer performance and manufacturability. For fabrication, conductive pillars were molded in a polymeric matrix through a process similar to that for the fabrication of 1-3 piezocomposites. The best combination of pillar and backing materials was selected from experiments to achieve the maximum acoustic performance (high impedance and attenuation) and channel uniformity. The 2D array transducer with 4096 channels built had a 3.5MHz center frequency and an over 60% fractional bandwidth. Every single channel of the prototype satisfied the target specifications and the standard deviation over the entire channels was within 0.81dB.