Textured ferroelectric ceramics based 1–3 piezoelectric composite for photoacoustic imaging

The quality of ultrasound and photoacoustic imaging primarily depends on the performance of piezoelectric transducer elements, which is closely related to the acoustic and electrical properties of piezoelectric materials. With the increasing demand for high-performance, low-cost piezoelectric materials, a high-temperature-resistant <001>-textured ferroelectric ceramic Pb(In_1/2Nb_1/2)O₃-Pb(Sc_1/2Nb_1/2)O₃-PbTiO₃ (PIN-PSN-PT) has been developed. In recent years, low-cost textured ceramic materials have exhibited high piezoelectric constants (d₃₃) and large electromechanical coupling coefficients (k_t). In this study, an ultrasonic transducer based on PIN-PSN-PT textured ceramic was successfully manufactured for the first time. The transducer has a center frequency of 4.7 MHz, −6 dB bandwidth of 60 %, effective k_t of 0.76, and two-way insertion loss (IL) of −34 dB. Photoacoustic imaging experiments on carbon fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) were conducted to evaluate the sensitivity and imaging quality of the transducer. The results indicate that the use of PIN-PSN-PT textured ceramics holds great potential in developing acoustic sensors for photoacoustic non-destructive testing applications.