Technology for an improved view

Pictured from left: Chang-Beom Eom, graduate students Jung-Hoon Choi and Land Belenky, and undergraduate student Peter Titus. Eom's group also works on new superconducting materials. (42K JPG)

Current medical ultrasound imaging technology isn't powerful enough to detect a few-millimeter tumor deep within the breast. But a group of five researchers led by Professor Chang-Beom Eom hopes to push that technology's limits and fabricate materials to make new, ultrasensitive high-frequency medical ultrasound transducers that doctors can use to find tiny, early-stage tumors.

To make the transducers small enough — one-quarter the width of a hair — and fabricate the materials to take advantage of their electromechanical properties, the group is making epitaxial single-crystalline forms of lead-magnesium-niobium-lead-titanate. Its higher sensitivity and broader bandwidth translate to improved imaging resolution and depth of penetration.

Researchers in the group are testing the transducers' resolution and measurement capabilities by imaging an artificial tumor cell. Eventually, they hope to fabricate multilayer stacks, which operate at low voltage, and transducer linear arrays. Among their applications, doctors also could use the high-frequency transducers for intracardiac and intravascular imaging for minimally invasive surgery, and ultrasound microscopy for imaging skin, excised blood vessels and cell suspensions.