General Electric Company

Ge Precision Healthcare LLC

Jean Pierre Malacrida

Flavien Daloz

Edouard Da Cruz

Jason Barrett

Giandonato Stallone

Coraly Cuminatto

Philippe Menage

Jean-Francois Gelly

Anne Cecile Dagonneau

Methods and systems are provided for a single element ultrasound transducer. In one embodiment, a method for the transducer comprises laminating a comb structure and a conductive base package into an acoustic stack with a non-conductive glue, grinding the acoustic stack, and dicing the ground acoustic stack along a plane extending from the top surface of the second fin of the conductive base package to the bottom surface of the acoustic stack. The resulting transducer may have a flat front face with a non-conductive groove separating a ground pad formed by the conductive base package from a signal pad formed by a matching layer of the comb structure.

Ultrasound transducer and method for wafer level front face attachment

Methods and systems are provided for a single element ultrasound transducer. In one embodiment, the ultrasound transducer comprises a front face, a back face parallel to the front face, a piezoelectric layer having a top surface electrically coupled to the signal pad and a bottom surface electrically coupled to the ground pad. In this way, the transducer can work robustly and may be automatically mounted to an imaging probe.

Ultrasound transducer and method for wafer level back face attachment

Methods and systems are provided for a single element ultrasound transducer. In one embodiment, the ultrasound transducer comprises: a piezoelectric layer, a matching layer, one surface of the matching layer is electrically coupled to a top surface of the piezoelectric layer and another surface of the matching layer forms a signal pad within a front face of the ultrasound transducer, and a base package electrically coupled to a bottom surface of the piezoelectric layer, the base package extending horizontally and laterally to form a back face of the ultrasound transducer parallel to the front face of the ultrasound transducer, and extending vertically relative to the back face of the ultrasound transducer to form a ground pad within the front face of the ultrasound transducer. In this way, the transducer can work robustly and may be automatically mounted to a flat substrate with printed circuit.

An ultrasound transducer element includes a piezoelectric layer, a front end body, and a backing layer assembly. The piezoelectric layer extends between opposite front and back sides and is configured to transmit acoustic waves from the front side. The front end is body disposed proximate to the front side of the piezoelectric layer and is configured to emit the acoustic waves out of a housing. The backing layer assembly is disposed proximate to the back side of the piezoelectric layer. The backing layer assembly includes a first thermally conductive mesh disposed in a matrix enclosure. The first thermally conductive mesh is positioned to conduct thermal energy away from the piezoelectric layer. In one aspect, the first thermally conductive mesh is a grid of elongated strands of a metal or metal alloy material oriented in at least one of transverse or oblique directions.

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Saint Laurent, France

Jean Pierre Malacrida