Capacitive Micromachined Ultrasonic Transducers: Minimally Invasive Biomedical Applications

Ultrasound covers a broad range of applications from underwater exploration and nondestructive evaluation of materials to medical diagnosis and treatment. The Capacitive Micromachined Ultrasonic Technology CMUT) has emerged as a promising alternative to traditional piezoelectric technology. The fundamental terminology, definitions and concepts related to CMUT are introduced in this research. Three prototypes based on micromachining processes for minimally invasive applications were developed including a multi-looking imager, a miniaturized invasive ultrasonic probe and an image guided therapy system. The primary testing results indicated that CMUT technology has great potential to become the next generation transducer technology. The readers such as engineers and students working in the field of Bio-MEMS and Ultrasonic applications can benefit from reading these topics.