The USCT project is concerned with the development of special ultrasound transducers tailored to the needs of the multimodal 3D imaging system. In collaboration with the Fraunhofer IKTS (Dresden), special single-fiber composite ultrasonic transducers have been developed (see picture). Core features are a spatially homogeneous radiation field, arbitrary positioning of a 2D array on a slice and efficient and inexpensive manufacturing. This was achieved by casting the slices in large strands containing the piezoelectrically active PZT fibers, which are then cut into slices using a standard sawing process - each section then results in a 2D transducer array for our system. This is much faster and easier than other manufacturing techniques for such arrays. Electrical contacting is also achieved efficiently and safely using standard semi-automatic printing processes. Several series of these transducers have already been built and will soon prove their suitability in a clinical multicenter study.

Technology: Ultrasound Computer Tomography