| Morgan Electro Ceramics (MEC), a leading manufacturer of electro ceramic products, including high voltage and RF capacitors and microwave and piezoelectric ceramics, introduces components for medical ultrasound transducers. These components, which are comprised of newly developed piezoelectric materials, including PZT-5K1-HD, PZT-5K3-HD, PZT-508-HD and a single crystal ceramic, PMN-PT, offer significantly improved transmitting and receiving capabilities for transducers used in a variety of medical ultrasound applications. These advanced piezoelectric materials offer higher coupling and dielectric properties. They also provide improved signal to noise ratios, despite the very small size and large aspect ratio of the piezoelectric components in the miniaturized transducers of state-of-the-art medical ultrasound arrays. The permittivity of the new materials is 50-95% higher than previously available piezoelectric ceramics, with dielectric constants ranging from 4800 for the PZT-5K3-HD to 6200 for the PZT-5K1-HD. The material scientists at Morgan Electro Ceramics have also succeeded in achieving higher densities, enabling finer dicing of the HD material into shapes with higher aspect ratios. The PMN-PT material provides a wider bandwidth than PZT, (upwards of 125%) which allows for improved image quality. |