Capacitive micromachined ultrasound transducers (CMUTs) have broad application prospects in medical imaging, flow monitoring, and nondestructive testing. CMUT arrays are limited by their fabrication process, which seriously restricts their further development and application. In this paper, a vacuum-sealed device for medical applications is introduced, which has the advantages of simple manufacturing process, no static friction, repeatability, and high reliability. The CMUT array suitable for medical imaging frequency band was fabricated by a silicon wafer bonding technology, and the adjacent array devices were isolated by an isolation slot, which was cut through the silicon film. The CMUT device fabricated following this process is a 4 × 16 array with a single element size of 1 mm × 1 mm. Device performance tests were conducted, where the center frequency of the transducer was 3.8 MHz, and the 6 dB fractional bandwidth was 110%. The static capacitance (29.4 pF) and center frequency (3.78 MHz) of each element of the array were tested, and the results revealed that the array has good consistency. Moreover, the transmitting and receiving performance of the transducer was evaluated by acoustic tests, and the receiving sensitivity was −211 dB @ 3 MHz, −213 dB @ 4 MHz. Finally, reflection imaging was performed using the array, which provides certain technical support for the research of two-dimensional CMUT arrays in the field of 3D ultrasound imaging.

In this work, we design, analyze and process an ultra-broadband absorption optical transparent metamaterials absorbing device. The simulation results show that within the 13.68–71.6 GHz frequency range, the devicereaches more than 90% absorptivity, and that transverse magnetic waves and transverse waves under a large angle of polarization and incident angle can obtain high absorption performance. Therefore the device has the perfect performance of polarization insensitivity and wide angle of incidence. The absorbing mechanism is analyzed by using the equivalent medium theory, and the theoretical results are in good agreement with the simulation results. Because of its advantages of wideband absorption, high transparency, lightweight, and easy availability, the deive has important application value in practical civil and military fields, such as electromagnetic interference, electromagnetic compatibility, super lens, invisibility cloak, solar cell device design and so on.

The biomedical acoustic signal plays an important role in clinical non-invasive diagnosis. In view of the deficiencies in early diagnosis of cardiovascular diseases, acoustic properties of S₁ and S₂ heart sounds are utilized. In this paper, we propose an integrated concave cilium MEMS heart sound sensor. The concave structure enlarges the area for receiving sound waves to improve the low-frequency sensitivity, and realizes the low-frequency and high-sensitivity characteristics of an MEMS heart sound sensor by adopting a reasonable acoustic package design, reducing the loss of heart sound distortion and faint heart murmurs, and improving the auscultation effect. Finally, experimental results show that the integrated concave ciliated MEMS heart sound sensor’s sensitivity reaches −180.6 dB@500 Hz, as compared with the traditional bionic ciliated MEMS heart sound sensor; the sensitivity is 8.9 dB higher. The sensor has a signal-to-noise ratio of 27.05 dB, and has good heart sound detection ability, improving the accuracy of clinical detection methods.

This paper presents the design and development of a high-resolution 3D ultrasound imaging system based on a 1 × 256 piezoelectric ring array, achieving an accuracy of 0.1 mm in both ascending and descending modes. The system achieves an imaging spatial resolution of approximately 0.78 mm. A 256 × 32 cylindrical sensor array and a digital phantom of breast tissue were constructed using the k-Wave toolbox. The signal is acquired layer by layer using 3D acoustic time-domain simulation, resulting in the collection of data from each of the 32 layers. The 1 × 256 ring array moves on a vertical trajectory from the chest wall to the nipple at a constant speed. A data set was collected at intervals of 1.5 mm, resulting in a total of 32 data sets. Surface rendering and volume rendering algorithms were used to reconstruct 3D ultrasound images from the volume data obtained via simulation so that the smallest simulated reconstructed lesion had a diameter of 0.3 mm. The reconstructed three-dimensional image derived from the experimental data exhibits the contour of the breast model along with its internal mass. Reconstructable dimensions can be achieved up to approximately 0.78 mm. The feasibility of applying the system to 3D breast ultrasound imaging has been demonstrated, demonstrating its attributes of resolution, precision, and exceptional efficiency.

It is well known that acoustic emission (AE) signals, generated by external impacts or damages such as crack initiation, mainly propagate in the form of Lamb waves in plate-like structures. In this work, MEMS-based resonant capacitive micro-machined ultrasonic transducers (CMUTs), which are designed for sensing out-of-plane displacements, have been verified by finite element method (FEM) modeling and theoretical analysis for their feasibility of detecting low-order Lamb waves (A0 and S0). First, combining the propagation theory of Lamb waves and the “spring-mass-damper” model of CMUTs, the out-of-plane sensing mechanism has been explained, together with the analytical expression of sensitivity. Then, simulations based on FEM have been carried out to show that the designed CMUTs are sensitive to out-of-plane displacements, while extremely insensitive to in-plane displacements. Meanwhile, a transient analysis has found the potential abilities of CMUTs for sensing A0 and S0 lamb waves. Besides, the sensing characteristics of CMUTs have also been investigated, including the influence of squeezed-film damping, the amplitude of the input signal, the cell number, and cell space. Finally, the ball drop impact is simulated to show the potential of identifying the location of the AE source by CMUTs. Our studies reveal the out-of-plane sensing behaviors of CMUTs for Lamb waves and may have the potential in promoting the miniaturization and integration of AE sensors.