Air-coupled ultrasonic transducer based on lead-free piezoceramics prepared by digital light processing 3D printing

Xinyi Zhou; Weigang Ma; Huayun Gao; Chuanmin Wang; Chanatip Samarth; Suwadee Kongparakul; Nguyen-Minh-An Tran; Junfeng Wang; Xiaotao Liu; Hua Tan; Haibo Zhang

doi:10.1016/j.ultras.2024.107429

Air-coupled ultrasonic transducer based on lead-free piezoceramics prepared by digital light processing 3D printing

Ultrasonics. 2024 Sep:143:107429. doi: 10.1016/j.ultras.2024.107429. Epub 2024 Aug 8.

Authors

Xinyi Zhou¹, Weigang Ma², Huayun Gao³, Chuanmin Wang⁴, Chanatip Samarth⁵, Suwadee Kongparakul⁶, Nguyen-Minh-An Tran⁷, Junfeng Wang⁸, Xiaotao Liu⁹, Hua Tan¹⁰, Haibo Zhang¹¹

Affiliations

¹ School of Materials Science and Engineering, State Key Laboratory of Material Processing and Die & Mould Technology, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China. Electronic address: [email protected].
² School of Materials Science and Engineering, State Key Laboratory of Material Processing and Die & Mould Technology, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China. Electronic address: [email protected].
³ School of Materials Science and Engineering, State Key Laboratory of Material Processing and Die & Mould Technology, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China. Electronic address: [email protected].
⁴ School of Materials Science and Engineering, State Key Laboratory of Material Processing and Die & Mould Technology, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China. Electronic address: [email protected].
⁵ Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science and Technology, Thammasat University, Pathumthani 12140, Thailand. Electronic address: [email protected].
⁶ Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science and Technology, Thammasat University, Pathumthani 12140, Thailand. Electronic address: [email protected].
⁷ Faculty of Chemical Engineering, Industrial University of Ho Chi Minh City, Ho Chi Minh City 800010, Viet Nam. Electronic address: [email protected].
⁸ Guangdong Dtech Technology Co., Ltd., Dongguan 523940, China. Electronic address: [email protected].
⁹ School of Materials Science and Engineering, State Key Laboratory of Material Processing and Die & Mould Technology, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China. Electronic address: [email protected].
¹⁰ School of Materials Science and Engineering, State Key Laboratory of Material Processing and Die & Mould Technology, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China; Guangdong HUST Industrial Technology Research Institute, Dongguan 523940, China. Electronic address: [email protected].
¹¹ School of Materials Science and Engineering, State Key Laboratory of Material Processing and Die & Mould Technology, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China; Faculty of Chemical Engineering, Industrial University of Ho Chi Minh City, Ho Chi Minh City 800010, Viet Nam; Guangdong HUST Industrial Technology Research Institute, Dongguan 523940, China. Electronic address: [email protected].

PMID: 39137677
DOI: 10.1016/j.ultras.2024.107429

Abstract

Piezoelectric composite ceramics, as the key components of ultrasonic transducers, have their vibration modes, electromechanical coupling performance, and acoustic impedance closely related to the volume fraction of ceramics. This study employed a novel digital light processing 3D printing technique (DLP) to fabricate 0.5Ba(Zr_0.2Ti_0.8)O₃-0.5(Ba_0.7Ca_0.3)TiO₃ (BCZT)-based 1-3 piezoelectric composite ceramics with different ceramic volume fractions (15.6 %, 23.5 %, 36.2 %, 48.4 %, 59.5 %). It demonstrates the suitability of the DLP process for the fabrication of 1-3 piezoelectric composite ceramics and investigates the influence of ceramic volume fraction on the performance of these ceramics. When the piezoelectric ceramic volume fraction was 59.5 %, the piezoelectric coefficient effective d₃₃ of the 1-3 piezoelectric composite device reached 315 pC/N, demonstrating excellent piezoelectric performance. The acoustic impedance Z was 16.3 MRayl, and the thickness electromechanical coupling coefficient k_t was 0.55, indicating high energy conversion efficiency. The air-coupled ultrasonic transducer prepared from the 1-3 piezoelectric composite ceramics with a ceramic volume fraction of 59.5 % exhibited a round-trip insertion loss (IL) of -70.32 dB and a -6 dB bandwidth (BW_-6dB) of 7.42 %. This work provides a more convenient and new method for the preparation of lead-free piezoelectric ceramic ultrasonic transducers.

Keywords: 1–3 piezoelectric composite elements; Air-coupling; Digital light-cured 3D printing; Lead-free piezoceramics; Ultrasonic transducers.