Review of pMUTs for medical imaging: towards high frequency arrays

pMUT (piezoelectric Micromachined Ultrasound Transducer) devices are an alternative that can overcome the limitations associated with conventional ultrasound transducers. pMUT's are reported for many applications such as range-finding, biometrics, and ultrasound imaging. However, pulse-echo measurements from fabricated pMUT devices/arrays are not commonly reported in literature, a reason being lack of desirable performance either in transmit or receive mode of operation. There is also limited information about the design, fabrication and characterization of 2D-pMUT-arrays operating at high frequencies (>15 MHz) in water medium. In this paper we review 'state-of-the-art' for pMUT-array based medical ultrasound imaging, with a focus on their pulse-echo imaging capability. Over the next 3-5 years, we expect further improvement in piezoelectric thin film deposition techniques, on-chip integration of pre-amplification circuits and further miniaturization of pMUT devices, thus paving the way for development of pMUT-array based high frequency medical imaging systems.