Micromachinable ultrasonic leaky wave air transducers
Author
Degertekin, F. L.
Atalar, Abdullah
Khuri-Yakub, B. T.
Date
1998-08-10Source Title
Applied Physics Letters
Print ISSN
0003-6951
Publisher
A I P Publishing LLC
Volume
73
Issue
6
Pages
741 - 743
Language
English
Type
ArticleItem Usage Stats
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Abstract
Ultrasonic air transducers using leaky waves on thin membranes are analyzed using perturbation and normal mode approaches. The transducers utilize the efficient coupling of ultrasonic energy to air through radiation of these leaky wave modes when their phase velocity is close to the sound speed in air. Theoretical results on optimum transducer dimensions and bandwidth estimation show that a minimum conversion loss of 8.7 dB with a 78% fractional bandwidth is possible. Common micromachining materials are shown to be suitable transducer materials and result in feasible devices. This is demonstrated by fabricating a 580 kHz transducer using a silicon membrane bonded to a ring of PZT-5H. With this configuration the transducer is self line focusing. Results of through transmission experiments on silicon and transmission images on paper are reported.