Transducers in medical ultrasound: Part Two. Vibration modes, matching layers and grating lobes.

The performance of transducers used for medical diagnosis depends to a great extent on matching layer, backing impedance and geometry of the active surface. In this paper special attention is given to the element vibrational modes, the optimum matching, the grating lobe and change of the real acoustic impedance into an imaginary impedance as a function of the product of the width and wavelength. Grating lobes on the echo image and the effect of a mismatch of the matching layer are illustrated. Suggestions are made for the design of linear and phased array transducers considering the above-mentioned aspects.