R ¼ ½ðZ2  cos hi  Z1  cos ht Þ=ðZ2  cos hi þ Z1  cos ht Þ (1)

A Study of Backing Layer Structure for

Intravascular Ultrasound Transducer1 where hi and ht are incident and transmitted angles of the wave,
and Z1 and Z2 are the acoustic impedances of two materials 1 and
2 given by Z1 ¼ q1c1 and Z2 ¼ q2c2, respectively. The reflection
Seon Mi Ji coefficient R is positive when Z1 < Z2 and negative when Z1 > Z2
Department of Medical Biotechnology, [2,4]. In other words, the reflected wave is in phase at the interface
Dongguk University, formed by a low-to-high acoustic impedance materials and
180 deg out of phase at the interface formed by a high-to-low
Seoul 04620, Korea acoustic impedance materials.
The suggested backing structure composed of three materials is
Chan Yuk Park shown in Fig. 1.
Department of Medical Biotechnology, The first and second materials contacting with piezoelectric
Dongguk University, layer have different acoustic impedance. The third material
Seoul 04620, Korea located at the end of the backing layer has an intermediate acous-
tic impedance of two front materials and has high attenuation
Jin Ho Sung coefficient. The location of two interfaces should be controlled to
Department of Medical Biotechnology, simultaneously generate the reflected waves by using the follow-
ing equation [1]:
Dongguk University,
Seoul 04620, Korea d ¼ t  c=2 (2)

Sung Min Kim where d is the thickness of the front backing material, c is the
Department of Medical Biotechnology, sound velocity in the backing material, and t is the generation
Dongguk University, time of the reflected wave at the interface. Using material velocity
and wave generation time, the total thickness of the backing layer
Seoul 04620, Korea can be calculated. The reflected wave at two interfaces of the sug-
gested backing structure can be canceled by the phase difference.
Jong Seob Jeong The remained energy would be transmitted into the rearmost ma-
Department of Medical Biotechnology, terial, and it can be almost dissipated due to damping of the rear-
Dongguk University, most material. Consequently, the suggested backing structure can
Seoul 04620, Korea suppress a generation of echo signals within the backing block
e-mail: jjsspace@dongguk.edu even if thickness of the backing layer is thin.
To demonstrate the performance of the proposed method, FEM
using PZFLEX program (Weidlinger associates, Los Altos, CA) was
conducted [5,6]. The ultrasonic transducer with conventional
1 Background bulk-type backing layer was modeled for performance
In general, a medical ultrasonic transducer is composed of pie- comparison.
zoelectric layer, matching layer, and backing layer. Among them,
the backing layer can shorten the duration of the ultrasonic pulse 3 Results
by attenuating the vibration of the piezoelectric layer resulting in IVUS transducer was designed using FEM simulation, and the
increased axial resolution [1,2]. The thickness of the backing layer simulation parameters are shown in Table 1. The conventional
is typically very thick and heavy for enough attenuation effect. bulk-type backing with 40k thickness was designed and6 dB
Therefore, reducing thickness of the backing layer can contribute bandwidth was about 67% as shown in Figs. 2(a) and 2(b). When
to decrease overall weight of the transducer. Small-sized trans- we reduced thickness of the bulk-type backing layer by 5k, the
ducers such as intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) transducer would reflected signal come from rear surface of the backing layer was
require the thin backing layer, especially. However, the thin back-
ing layer can be suffered from insufficient attenuation effect and
the unwanted reflected signal comes from the bottom of the thin
backing.
In order to solve this problem, in this study, we investigated a
structure of backing layer and proposed the novel structure of the
backing layer capable of suppressing the generation of reflected
signal comes from the thin backing layer [3]. Finite element
method (FEM) simulation was conducted and all simulation pa-
rameters were focused on the IVUS transducer configuration.

2 Methods
The suggested backing structure was derived from the physical
principle of free-end and fixed-end reflections. The principle is
that the phase of reflected wave is reversed at fixed-end boundary
while the phase is maintained equally at free-end boundary. In
acoustics, this principle can be realized by the relative acoustic
impedance of two materials as follows [2]:

1
Accepted and presented at The Design of Medical Devices Conference
(DMD2016), April 11–14, 2016 Minneapolis, MN, USA.
DOI: 10.1115/1.4033853
Manuscript received March 1, 2016; final manuscript received March 17, 2016; Fig. 1 Schematic diagram for cross-sectional structure of the
published online August 1, 2016. Editor: William Durfee. proposed phase-canceling backing layer

Journal of Medical Devices Copyright V

C 2016 by ASME SEPTEMBER 2016, Vol. 10 / 030933-1

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 Table 1 Simulation parameters of the designed transducer 6 dB bandwidth was also increased to 63% compared to that of
thin-bulk-type-backing layer. In this simulation, the impedances
Center frequency 20 MHz of the backing materials were 3 Mrayl, 5.9 Mrayl, and 9.5 Mrayl,
Aperture size 1 mm  1 mm respectively. In addition, the sensitivity of the proposed transducer
Piezoelectric material PMN-32%PT single crystal
was affected by the two front materials. In this simulation, the
First matching material Metal loaded epoxy (8.5 Mrayl)
Second matching material Unloaded epoxy (2.7 Mrayl)
sensitivity was almost same as the bulk-type backing with 5.8
Mrayl.

4 Interpretation
shown and 6 dB bandwidth was decreased to 16% resulting in In this study, a novel backing structure using phase-cancelation
distorted frequency spectrum (Figs. 2(c) and 2(d)). Note that ep- effect was proposed, and the performance was verified by apply-
oxy/metal powder composite was employed as the backing mate- ing to 20 MHz IVUS transducer based on FEM simulation. First,
rial. Its acoustic impedance and attenuation coefficient were 5.8 we confirmed that the reverberation signal was generated by the
Mrayl and 42 dB/mm, respectively. reduced thickness of the backing layer. One of the solutions for
Figure 3 shows the time- and frequency-domain responses of this problem is to increase attenuation effect of the backing mate-
the proposed phase-canceling backing structure. The results were rial. Generally, the backing material is fabricated by using mixture
similar with that of thick-bulk-type backing layer (Figs. 2(a) and of epoxy resin and metallic powders. To more increase the attenu-
2(b)). The distortion of time- and frequency-domain signals can ation effect of these materials, the attenuation value of epoxy
be recovered by applying the proposed backing structure. The should be high enough, but not easy to find proper material

Fig. 2 (a) Time- and (b) frequency-domain responses of thick (40 k) bulk backing mode;
(c) time- and (d) frequency-domain responses of thin (total 5 k thickness) bulk backing
mode

Fig. 3 (a) Time- and (b) frequency-domain responses of the suggested backing structure
(total 5 k thickness)

030933-2 / Vol. 10, SEPTEMBER 2016 Transactions of the ASME

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 matched to application. In this study, instead of attenuation value Acknowledgment
control, impedance control based on phase-cancelation method
This work was supported by R&D Program of Ministry of
was employed. By using acoustic impedance, the proposed model
Trade, Industry and Energy/Korea Evaluation institute of indus-
can minimize the generation of reverberation signals caused by the
trial Technology (Grant No. MOTIE/KEIT 10048528) and Inter-
insufficient attenuation effect in the thin thickness. Thus, it can be
national Collaborative R&D Program funded by the Ministry of
hardly affected by attenuation value of the materials and frequency
Trade, Industry & Energy (MOTIE), Korea (N0000684).
of the transducers. In this structure, the difference of the acoustic
impedance of two interfaces should be similar. In other words, the
reflected signals of the individual interface should be same ampli- References
tude and opposite phase to be canceled perfectly. Selecting the [1] Shung, K. K., 2004, Diagnostic Ultrasound: Imaging and Blood Flow Measure-
ments, CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL.
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capability related to this structure. Additionally, the acoustic impe- sity Press, New York.
dances of the two front materials have an effect on the sensitivity [3] Chapagain, K. R., and Ronnekleive, A., 2013, “Grooved Backing Structure for
of transmitted and received signal. The rearmost material should CMUTs,” IEEE Trans. Ultrason. Ferroelectr. Freq. Control, 60(11),
pp. 2440–2452.
be attenuative material that can dissipate the remained acoustic [4] Kinsler, L. E., Frey, A. R., Alan, C. B., and Sanders, J. V., 1999, Fundamentals
energy. of Acoustics, Wiley, Hoboken, NJ.
Since the proposed technique can contribute to reduce thickness [5] PZFlex Support Group, 2014, “PZFlex Command Reference Manual,” Weidlinger
of backing layer, it can be used for small-sized transducers such Associates, Cupertino, CA, http://www.pzflex.com.
[6] Wang, H., Ritter, T., Cao, W., and Shung, K. K., 2001, “High Frequency Proper-
as IVUS transducers including forward-looking, side-looking ties of Passive Materials for Ultrasound Transducers,” IEEE Trans. Ultrason.
single-element, or array transducers. Ferroelectr. Freq. Control, 48(1), pp. 78–84.

Journal of Medical Devices SEPTEMBER 2016, Vol. 10 / 030933-3

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