An Analysis Method for Capacitive Micromachined Ultrasound Transducer (CMUT) Energy Conversion during Large Signal Operation

With Capacitive Micromachined Ultrasound Transducers (CMUTs) increasingly being used for high intensity, large signal ultrasound applications and several drive methods being proposed, the efficiency of these devices in this operation regime have not been quantitatively evaluated. Since well-known frequency and capacitance-based coupling coefficients definitions are not valid for large signal, nonlinear operation, an energy-based definition should be used. In this paper, an expression for mechanical energy in a CMUT is obtained based on the assumption that CMUT is a linear time varying capacitor in all regimes of operation. This expression is evaluated by the help of an experimentally verified nonlinear CMUT model to define an energy conversion ratio (ECR) which can be considered as a coupling coefficient valid for all regimes of operation. This parameter is validated in the small signal regime and then used to evaluate CMUT performance with various large drive signals. The quantitative modeling results show that CMUTs do not need DC bias to achieve high efficiency large signal transduction: AC only signals at half the operation frequency with amplitudes beyond the collapse voltage can provide efficiencies (ECR) above 0.9 with harmonic content below −25 dB. Based on these results, ECR variation with membrane geometry and parasitic capacitance are given as examples for device optimization. The overall modeling approach is also qualitatively validated by experiments.