Development of fine-scale piezoelectric composites for transducers

Piezoelectric ceramic/polymer composites, also known as piezocomposites, have been developed over the past two decades for electromechanical transducers to be used in both military and civilian applications. Recently, the thrust in these transducers is toward high operating frequencies, requiring fine-scale ( < 200- mu m ceramic-phase dimension) piezocomposites. Methods for processing these fine-scale piezocomposites are discussed. Current capabilities, as well as strengths and weaknesses of each method, are compared. The fundamentals of medical imaging and the importance of spatial scale in composite performance are reviewed. Several processing methods demonstrated composites with fine-scale ceramic phases ( < 50 mu m), and others have shown the potential to form composites with a ceramic scale of under 20 mu m.