A Novel Laser Ultrasound Transducer Using Candle Soot Carbon Nanoparticles

Abstract

As a novel composite material for laser ultrasound transducer, candle soot nanoparticles polydimethylsiloxane (CSPs-PDMS) has been demonstrated to generate high frequency, broadband, and high-amplitude ultrasound waves. In this study, we investigated the mechanism of the high-optoacoustic conversion efficiency exhibited by the composite. A thermal-acoustic coupling model was proposed for analyzing the performance of the composite. The theoretical result matches well with the experimental observation. The acoustic beam profile was compared with Field II simulation results. The 4.41 × 10 <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">-3</sup> energy conversion coefficient and 21 MHz--6 dB frequency bandwidth of the composite suggest that CSPs-PDMS composites is promising for a broad range of ultrasound therapy and non-destructive testing applications.