A new row-column-addressed transducer for 3D ultrasound imaging

Row-Column-Addressed (RCA) array is a novel 2D ultrasound transducer for ultrafast 3D ultrasonic imaging. Compared to traditional 2D fully addressed matrix array, RCA transducers reduce electronic channels from N² to 2 N, and significantly reduce hardware costs and manufacturing complexity, therefore enabling ultrafast ultrasound imaging. Currently reported RCA probes adopted a 1-3 composite structure as the active layer, resulting in increased electrode resistance of each electrical channel. In order to optimize the electrical contact and acoustic matching of transducer, we propose an innovative 1-3-2 composite material structure. The central frequency and -6 dB bandwidth of our RCA probe using 1-3-2 composite structure are 8 MHz and 70 %, respectively. The insertion loss of -33.7 dB was achieved with our design, demonstrating high sensitivity of our transducer. The imaging performance of our RCA probe was demonstrated on phantom and in vivo human carotid artery, and ultrafast 3D imaging was successfully achieved. The lateral and axial resolutions achieved are better than 0.50 mm and 0.25 mm, respectively. These results suggest potential clinical application of our developed RCA probe on 3D ultrasound imaging.