High-Frequency Ultrasonic Transducer Operating in Air

The design and application of high-frequency piezoelectric air transducers are described. By employing a double layer acoustic matching transformer to a ceramic thickness mode vibrator, an air transducer with low insertion loss (52 dB) and good RF pulse response (9 µs of -20 dB ring-down period) has been developed. Use of the transducer operating at 1 MHz for distance measurement in a range of 0~20 cm has revealed that the range resolution and the measurement accuracy are 1.5 mm and of the order of 0.1 mm, respectively. Other applications described here are the characterization of cloth surfaces and profile measurement of cloths.