Ultrasonic properties of all-printed piezoelectric polymer transducers

Abstract

The ability of producing ultrasonic transducers from screen-printing has been explored experimentally, through printing and characterization of a large number of transducers. In an allprinted test design, 124 transducers with four different electrode sizes ranging from 1 to 4.9 mm2, were printed layer-by-layer on a high performance polyethyleneimine polymer. Inks from ferroelectric and conductive polymers were applied to the active part of a transducer, to provide a good acoustical match between the individual layers. Ultrasonic characterizations of the transducers done by two independent methods provided a broad-banded frequency response with a maximum response around 100 MHz.