Single crystal Pb(Zn/sub 1/3/Nb/sub 2/3/)O/sub 3//PbTiO/sub 3/ (PZN/PT) in medical ultrasonic transducers

Solid solutions of Pb(Zn/sub 1/3/Nb/sub 2/3/)O/sub 3/ (PZN) and PbTiO/sub 3/ (PT) have been grown in single crystal form to sizes large enough to permit the fabrication of a 5 MHz phased array. Transducer construction techniques employed differ from standard ceramic arrays. Crystallographic alignment is found to be a significant contributor to piezoelectric performance. The crystal structure and phase diagram play a major role in processing steps requiring heating such as poling and electroding. A complex composite structure is utilized to allow for efficient operation while maintaining structural integrity. The pulse-echo performance and insertion loss of this array are found to be superior to a similarly constructed PZT 5H array.