High frequency needle ultrasonic transducers based on Mn doped piezoelectric single crystal

Abstract This paper describes the design, fabrication and imaging application of high frequency needle-type transducers based on manganese doped Pb(In1/2Nb1/2)O3-Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)-PbTiO3(Mn: PIN-PMN-PT) piezoelectric single crystals. The grown Mn: PIN-PMN-PT single crystals have a piezoelectric coefficient d33 of 1200 pc/N, an electromechanical coupling factor kt of 54%, and Curie temperature of 220 °C. Mn: PIN-PMN-PT single crystals based transducers with one and two matching layers show center frequency of 48 MHz, 47.1 MHz and −6 dB bandwidth of 36.7%, 41.8% respectively. Zebrafish have been imaged by these transducers, which shows the potential applications of these Mn: PIN-PMN-PT single crystals based transducers in high resolution biological imaging. Electrical impedance and phase of Mn: PIN-PMN-PT transducers were measured at temperature from 40 °C to 160 °C and the trend of changes was explained by the Mason model in different situations. It was found that the Mn: PIN-PMN-PT can maintain good performance at temperatures as high as 140 °C. The result shows that the Mn: PIN-PMN-PT has superior piezoelectric properties comparable to PIN-PMN-PT and its thermal stability is higher than PMN-PT.