Enhanced Properties of 3-MHz Sliver-Mode Vibrators for Cardiac Probes With Alternating Current Poling for Pb(Mg_1/3Nb_2/3)O₃-PbTiO₃ Single Crystals

Abstract

We investigated the effects of alternating current poling (ACP) on the piezoelectric and dielectric properties of 3-MHz sliver mode (L13 mm × W0.10-0.25 mm × T0.48 mm) vibrators fashioned from Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3-0.30PbTiO3 (PMN-0.30PT) single crystal (SC) plate manufactured using the continuous-feeding Bridgman (CF-BM) method for cardiac probes. The ACP SC plate (L13 mm × W24 mm × T0.48 mm) exhibited ultrahigh dielectric permittivity ( ε^T₃₃/ε₀ ) and piezoelectric coefficient ( d₃₃ ) of 9690 and 2920 pC/N, respectively. After array dicing, the SC slivers with widths of 0.10, 0.15, 0.20, and 0.25 mm were obtained, and their average ε^T₃₃/ε₀ values decreased from the SC plate ε^T₃₃/ε₀ by 45% (5330), 29% (6880), 19% (7840), and 15% (8240), respectively, possibly because of heat and mechanical damage during the dicing. A combination of the ACP and a postdicing direct current poling (ACP-DCP) recovered their ε^T₃₃/ε₀ values to 6050, 7080, 8140, and 8540, respectively. The sliver mode electromechanical coupling factors ( k'₃₃ ) were confirmed to exceed 93% after the ACP-DCP process, which were more than 4% higher than those of DCP-DCP SC slivers. The measured impedance spectra indicated that the SC slivers with 0.10-0.20 mm in width showed no spurious mode vibration near the fundamental k'₃₃ mode. We conclude that the ACP-DCP SC slivers maintained more enhanced piezoelectric and dielectric properties than the DCP-DCP samples. These results will have important implications for the commercial application of ACP technology to medical imaging ultrasound probes.