Abstract
The performance of the piezo-composite transducer is greatly influenced by the matching layers. Based on finite element analysis and artificial intelligence, an optimization design method is proposed to optimize the matching layers of a 2–2 piezo-composite transducer for biomedical imaging. The neural networks are trained by the finite element analysis data to build up the mapping relationship between the thickness of matching layers and the performance. The optimization criteria are established based on the performance (centre frequency, bandwidth, and peak-to-peak voltage) and minimizing the material consumption. The thicknesses of matching layers are optimized by using a particle swarm optimization algorithm. The optimized thicknesses of both matching layers are 49 μm. The optimized centre frequency, bandwidth, and peak-to-peak voltage are 9.1 MHz, 72.5%, and 2.26 V, which can nearly achieve the designed targets (9.5 MHz, 75%, and 2.20 V). According to the optimized thicknesses of matching layers, the fabricated 2–2 piezo-composite transducer exhibits a centre frequency of 9.8 MHz, a bandwidth of 79.6%, and a peak-to-peak voltage of 2.11 V verifies the effectiveness and availability of the proposed method. Then, the piezo-composite transducer is hard-pressed for ultrasonic imaging. The press-focused piezo-composite transducer has an insertion loss of -19.1 dB at 10 MHz, a lateral resolution of 125 μm at 4 mm, and an axial resolution of 132 μm. The good resolution was confirmed by scanning the pig eyeball, which suggests that the 2–2 piezo-composite transducer with optimized matching layers has great potential in biomedical imaging.
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Abbreviations
- BW:
-
6 DB Bandwidth
- CF:
-
Centre frequency
- PV:
-
Peak-to-peak voltage
- TPC:
-
Thickness of Parylene C
- TSE:
-
Thickness of silver epoxy
- CF des :
-
Designed centre frequency
- CF max C min :
-
Maximum and minimum of centre frequency
- BW des :
-
Designed -6 dB bandwidth
- BW max BW min :
-
Maximum and minimum of -6 dB bandwidth
- PV des :
-
Designed peak-to-peak voltage
- PV max PV min :
-
Maximum and minimum of peak-to-peak voltage
- TPCmax :
-
Maximum thickness of Parylene C
- TSEmax :
-
Maximum thickness of silver epoxy
- α:
-
Weight of centre frequency
- β:
-
Weight of -6 dB bandwidth
- γ:
-
Weight of peak-to-peak voltage
- η:
-
Weight of material consumption
- v i :
-
Velocity of the ith particle
- x i :
-
Position of the ith particle
- w :
-
Inertia weight
- p i :
-
Best previous positions of the ith particle
- p g :
-
Best previous positions of all particles
- c 1, c 2 :
-
Constants to determine the weights of \(p_{i}\) and \(p_{g}\)
- r 1, r 2 :
-
Two random values
- iter :
-
Current iteration
- iter max :
-
Maximum of the current iteration
- w max :
-
Maximum of inertia weight
- w min :
-
Minimum of inertia weight
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundations of China (No: 62104177, 61974110), Shenzhen Science technology and fundamental research and discipline layout project (No. JCYJ20170818153048647), Natural Science Foundations of Shaanxi Province (No: 2020JM-205), Shaanxi Provincial Association of Science and Technology Young Talents Support Project (No: 20190105), Xijiang Innovation Team Introduction Program of Zhaoqing, the Industry-University-Academy Cooperation Program of Xidian University-Chongqing IC Innovation Research Institute (No. CQIRI-2021CXY-Z03), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No: XJS211105, JBF211103).
Funding
National natural science foundation of china, 61974110, Chunlong Fei, Shenzhen fundamental research and discipline layout project, JCYJ20170818153048647, Wei Feng, Natural science foundation of shaanxi province, 2020JM-205, Chunlong Fei, Shaanxi provincial association of science and technology young talents support project, 20190105, Chunlong Fei, Xijiang innovation team introduction program of zhaoqing, the industry-university-academy cooperation program of xidian university-chongqing ic innovation research institute, CQIRI-2021CXY-Z03, Zhishui Jiang, fundamental research funds for the central universities, XJS211105, Dongdong Chen, JBF211103, Chunlong Fei, National Natural Science Foundation of China, 62104177, Dongdong Chen
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P. Lin and D. Chen wrote the manuscript with support from Y. Zhu and C. Fei generated the experimental results. D. Chen (ddchen@xidian.edu.cn) and C. Fei supervised the project, and they are co-corresponding authors of this paper.
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The current work is part of a confidential project. Therefore, the developed codes cannot be disclosed at present. However, the basic data from PZFlex software for optimization and optimization results can be found in the Appendix.
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Lin, P., Zhu, Y., Chen, D. et al. Matching layer design of a 2–2 piezo-composite ultrasonic transducer for biomedical imaging. Struct Multidisc Optim 65, 101 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00158-021-03130-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00158-021-03130-8