Design and Ultrasonic Characterization of a Thin-Film, Flexible, PMUT Array Available to Purchase

Ultrasound is widely used for nondestructive evaluation, structural health monitoring, acoustic emission, sound navigation ranging, and in sensors for automobiles, medicine, and many other applications. Next-generation, small-form-factor sensors have been achieved through advances in piezoelectric micromachined ultrasonic transducers (PMUTs) that can be positioned on either a flexible polymer or a silicon substrate to form an array. This article describes a materials and design optimization study that used finite element analyses to improve designs for robust and practical PMUT sensor arrays.