Micromachined Silicon Parallel Acoustic Delay Lines as Time Delayed Ultrasound Detector Array for Real-Time...

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Imaging
• Acoustics
• Materials Science

Background:

• Photoacoustic tomography (PAT) is a powerful imaging modality.
• Current ultrasonic receiver systems for PAT can be complex and bulky.
• There is a need for more efficient and compact acoustic delay line solutions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and characterize a novel 16-channel parallel acoustic delay line (PADL) array for real-time PAT.
• To evaluate the performance of silicon-based PADLs compared to existing technologies.
• To demonstrate the feasibility of simplified ultrasonic receiver designs for PAT.

Main Methods:

• Fabrication of 16-channel PADL arrays from single-crystalline silicon using deep reactive ion etching.
• Interfacing the silicon PADL array with a single ultrasonic transducer and DAQ electronics.
• Acquisition and reconstruction of PAT images from a phantom study.

Main Results:

• The micromachined silicon PADLs demonstrated higher acoustic transmission efficiency and a smaller form factor.
• A 16:1 signal-to-channel reduction ratio was achieved, simplifying receiver electronics.
• A PAT image of an embedded target was successfully reconstructed with accurate dimensions.

Conclusions:

• Silicon-based PADL arrays offer significant advantages for real-time PAT system development.
• This technology enables simplified, more compact, and potentially lower-cost PAT systems.
• The developed PADL array shows promise for advancing real-time photoacoustic imaging applications.