Ultrasonic array of thick film transducers for biological tissue characterization

The initial motivation for this work was to accomplish an easy way to manufacture different geometries of ultrasonic transducers and arrays using a PZT powder, combined with a standard process to have repetitive series of them. The piezoelectric thick film was obtained using a PZT paste and applying it by screen printing on an alumina substrate. Then, the film was drying and sintered with a temperature-time profile determined by the paste characteristics. Each transducer is composed by three layers, one by PZT and two acting as electrodes. The active element of the paste is a PZT powder which is dispersed in a commercial vehicle to obtain rheological properties suitable for use the screen printing process. The connection between PZT particles is improved by adding a lead borosilicate frit glass that also helps to attach the film to the substrate due to the relatively low temperature of sintered that has been used in this process. The PZT film has low density that is generated by internal porosity, so its acoustic impedance is lower than for a bulk ceramic transducer and so is well adapted to testing human tissues. At the same time the thick film technology is well suited to make medium size transducers and also arrays performed with tiny ultrasonic transducers.