Self-healing: A new skill unlocked for ultrasound transducer

Publication date: February 2020Source: Nano Energy, Volume 68Author(s): Jiapu Li, Yang Yang, Zeyu Chen, Shuang Lei, Maokang Shen, Tao Zhang, Xuekai Lan, Yijie Qin, Jun Ou-Yang, Xiaofei Yang, Yong Chen, Ziyu Wang, Benpeng ZhuAbstractFor an ultrasound device, to prolong its lifetime and guarantee the performance is of significant importance. Actually, it is difficult for a traditional piezoelectric ultrasound transducer to recover from physical damage caused by sudden impact, accidental scratches, and fatigue fracture. As a promising ultrasound device, the optoacoustic transducer, the cole part of which is inorganic-polymer nanocomposite, has drawn much attention in recent years. Fortunately, the development of self-healable polymer provides a good chance for us to endow this kind of device with self-healing capability. Here, based on a covalently cured poly(urea-urethane) elastomeric network and carbon nanotubes nanocomposite, we introduce a catalyst-free and room temperature self-healing optoacoustic transducer. Such device is designed to have a three-layered structure——self-healing nanocomposite/PDMS/glass. By taking the advantage of the principle of wave superposition, its laser-generated ultrasound can be enhanced greatly. This novel ultrasound transducer behaves excellent self-healing performance, and it can recover from a cut or laser-induced damage. After 10th self-repairs, its output can still maintain 92.3% of the original sound pressure. With a self-focusing tech...
Source: Nano Energy - Category: Nanotechnology Source Type: research