Single crystal piezoelectric composites for advanced NDT ultrasound

In this paper, the design, fabrication and characterization of PMN-PT single crystal/epoxy composites are reported for NDT ultrasound transducers. Specifically, 1-3 PMN-PT/epoxy composites with center frequencies of 5 MHz - 40 MHz were designed and fabricated using either the dice-and-fill method or a photolithography based micromachining process. The measured electromechanical coefficients for composites with frequency of 5 MHz - 15 MHz were about 0.78-0.83, and the coupling coefficients for composites with frequencies of 25 MHz- 40 MHz were about 0.71-0.72. The dielectric loss remains low (< 0.05). These properties hold promise for advanced NDT ultrasound applications.