Electronic beam steering of shock waves.

Shock-wave generators are now currently used for the treatment of renal stones. In all these generators the focal zone is determined by their geometrical parameters. We propose, for the first time, a piezocomposite shock-wave generator with electronic focusing. The system is composed of a two-dimensional array and its electronic hardware. The array is composed of 121 independent piezocomposite transducers arranged in a spherical shell 20 cm in diameter and focused at 190 mm. The electronic hardware includes 121 x 6 kV-impulse generators. The interdelay of each channel can be adjusted between 10 ns to 100 microseconds by steps of 10 ns. The results show: the use of composite material is possible for the generation of high amplitude pressure waves; the pressure-voltage relationship is linear up to a pressure of about 28 x 10(5) Pa at the transducer front face; the material can be used for a long period of time; i.e., after one million shocks, no decrease in sensitivity, no alteration in its electrical behaviour and no time wave form distortion were observed. Electronic focusing is efficient in an ellipsoidal region of about 4 cm in diameter and 6 cm in length. The pressure in the focal zone is about 600 x 10(5) Pa.