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Micromachined Ultrasound transducers for wide range application in Medical imaging and Non Destructive Testing

Final Report Summary - MUSTWIN (Micromachined ultrasound transducers for wide range applications in medical imaging and non - destructive testing)

The aim of the MUSTWIN project was to introduce the concept of Micromachined ultrasonic transducers (MUTs), namely the capacitive (cMUT) as well as the piezoelectric (pMUT) transducers. Transducers with four different actuation modes, namely two electrostatic silicon nitride (SiN) or silicon on insulator (SOI) cMUTs and two piezoelectric TM or BM type pMUTs, based on the micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) manufacturing process, would be implemented in medical applications as well as in non-destructive testing. The first application covered the need for health diagnostic systems, namely obtaining affordable acoustic probes and realising higher frequency probes for new applications. The second application concerned material and structure control.

The project achieved in realising five Demonstrator devices (DM) with four different MUT technologies, namely:
- DM1 and DM2 using SiN cMUT technology;
- DM1 and DM2 using SOI cMUT technology;
- DM3 and DM5 using BM pMUT technology;
- DM4 using TM pMUT technology.

The main outcome from the evaluation of the devices was the fact that the most advanced technology is that of the SiN cMUT. By using cMUT technology increased bandwidth and shorter impulse response had been obtained without any trade-off. TM pMUT technology represented a new opportunity for the design and manufacturing of high-frequency transducers, especially arrays of transducers. They could be mainly used in high frequency medical imaging applications such as eye imaging or for intravascular imaging.