The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Mar. 01, 1994
Filed:
Dec. 17, 1992
J Fleming Dias, Palo Alto, CA (US);
Hewlett-Packard Company, Palo Alto, CA (US);
Abstract
An ultrasound transducer for intravascular examinations comprises an interleaved series of eccentric elliptical electrodes disposed on the back face of a piezoelectric substrate that has been alternately poled in the thickness dimension. The back face of the transducer is coupled to air, while impedance-matching layers are on the front face of the transducer. The front face is concave spherical to provide a geometric focus. The electrodes are driven at an ultrasound frequency. This arrangement results in a longitudinal-mode ultrasound transmission through the front face of the transducer. The eccentricity of the electrodes precompensates for distortion imposed by a cylindrical window. The pitch (spacing) of the electrodes increases radially, reducing speckling in the ultrasound image. This transducer provides for high-frequency intravascular examinations, and thus correspondingly high-resolution images, without using impractically thin piezoelectric substrates. In addition, the geometric focus, the predistortion, and the speckle-reduction all reduce the artifacts in the resulting high-resolution ultrasound image.