• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.329-336
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• 2003

Intra-Vascular Ultra-Sound (IVUS) transducers were developed for the application to diagnose coronary diseases. The transducer consists of 32 piezoelectric elements with a front insulation layer and a polymeric acoustic backing layer on a hollow alumina tube. The optimal geometrical structure of the transducer was designed through theoretical analysis of radiation patterns of the transducer. Samples of the IVUS transducers of the diameter of 3㎜ were fabricated to illustrate the design scheme. For the piezoelectric elements, 2-2 mode piezocomposite materials were employed. Experimental performance of the transducers showed good agreement with the design results, which verified feasibility of the transducer for IVUS applications.