DISCUS

Ultrasonic devices and characterization

DISCUS team’s activities are related to ultrasonic applications, starting from the functional characterisation of piezoelectric materials integrated in ultrasonic devices up to their use in new methods and systems for the characterisation of complex media, with an emphasis on ultrasonic transducers.

The team has acquired technical and theoretical expertise on ultrasonic transducers, based on either piezoelectric or capacitive effects. This know-how is used in order to develop innovative devices such as high frequency probes used in high resolution medical imaging and high-density integrated arrays for different applications. Particularly, acoustic microsystems (cMUT or pMUT) are developed for new investigation modalities, characterization of complex media, NDE in harsh environments, or for imaging. Contribution of phononic crystals and metamaterials is also being studied. Ultrasonic waves being one of the most interesting ways to non-destructively explore complex structures and media, innovative methods are being developed for a wide range of applications at different scales from a few hundred nanometres to several tens of millimetres. The data from such measurements is extremely rich and if it answers many practical problems, it also addresses fundamental issues of acoustic phenomena.
 

DISCUS team focuses on three research operations: