A row-column addressed micromachined ultrasonic transducer array for surface scanning applications

Row-column addressed arrays for ultrasonic non-destructive testing (NDT) applications are analyzed and demonstrated in this paper. Simulation and experimental results of a row-column addressed 32 by 32 capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducer (CMUT) array are presented. The CMUT array, which was designed for medical imaging applications, has a center frequency of 5.3 MHz. The CMUT array was used to perform C-scans on test objects with holes that have diameters of 1.0 mm and 0.5 mm. The array transducer has an aperture size of 4.8 mm by 4.8 mm, and it was used to scan an area of 4.0 mm by 4.0 mm. Compared to an N by N fully addressed 2-D array, a row-column addressed array of the same number of elements requires fewer (N instead of N2) pairs of interconnection and supporting electronic components such as pulsers and amplifiers. Even though the resulting field of view is limit by the aperture size, row-column addressed arrays and the row-column addressing scheme can be an alternative option of 2-D arrays for NDT applications.