Samarium and manganese-doped lead titanate ceramic fiber/epoxy 1-3 composite for high-frequency transducer application

Samarium- (Sm) and manganese- (Mn) doped lead titanate ceramic fibers with a diameter of 35 /spl mu/m were prepared using a sol-gel method. The X-ray diffraction pattern shows that the fibers have a pure perovskite structure. The 1-3 composite disks with a thickness of 31-41 /spl mu/m and with ceramic volume fraction of /spl sim/0.68 have been prepared using the samarium and manganese doped lead titanate (PSmT) fibers. The resonance characteristics of the poled composite disks were measured. A focused transducer was fabricated using a concave 1-3 composite disk with nonuniform thickness in order to enhance its bandwidth. The insertion loss (IL), pulse-echo response and frequency spectrum of the composite transducer were measured. The center frequency of the transducer was /spl sim/31 MHz with a -3 dB bandwidth of /spl sim/123% and a low IL of 29.3 dB.