10.1109/ULTSYM.2010.

0369

Simple method for measuring phase transfer

functions of transducers
Department

P.L.M.J. van Neer , H.J. Vos , M.G. Danilouchkine , N. de Jong

of Biomedical Engineering, Erasmus MC, P. O. Box 2040, Rotterdam, 3000 CA, the Netherlands
Cardiology Institute of the Netherlands, Utrecht, 3501 DG, the Netherlands
Department of Physics of Fluids, University of Twente, P. O. Box 217, Enschede, 7522 NB, the Netherlands
Interuniversity

AbstractThe impulse response of a transducer can be represented in the frequency domain by its complex analog, the
transfer function. The amplitude transfer function is measured
regularly in contrast to the phase transfer function (PTF).
Applications for the PTF range from adjusting the emitted pulse
shape for coding based imaging to the optimization of ultrasound
contrast imaging methods based on destructive interference. A
number of acoustic methods to measure a transducers PTF exists, but they usually require accurate distance and acoustic wave
speed measurements. Small discrepancies in these cause large
phase errors. We present a pulse-echo method to measure a transducers PTF without needing a measurement of the wave travel
distance and speed. We generalize it to rectangular transducers.
In our method the transducer is excited by a monofrequency
sine burst with a rectangular envelope. The transducer initially
vibrates at resonance (transient regime) prior to the forcing
frequency (steady state regime). The PTF value of the system is
the difference between the phases deduced from the transient and
the steady state regimes at different forcing frequencies. As the
PTF is calculated from a relative difference measuring the wave
travel distance or speed is unnecessary. The approach assumes
linear wave propagation and uses a pulse-echo setup. The method
was tested on a custom built single element transducer (square:
13 x 13 mm, center frequency 4 MHz, no backing or matching
layers). The results were compared with KLM model simulations.
Also, we phase calibrated a hydrophone, which was then used
to measure the PTF of the square transducer. The simulated
and measured resonance frequencies differed by 0.17 MHz. The
mean PTF difference between simulation and measurements was
7 - 14 . The methods reproducibility was 15 . The PTF of
the transducer was measured with good reproducibility, without
measuring the wave travel distance or speed of sound in the
medium. Our simple setup requires basic laboratory ultrasound
equipment.
Index Termsphase; pulse-echo; hydrophone; rectangular
transducers; transducer calibration.

I. I NTRODUCTION
The impulse response of a transducer can be represented in
the frequency domain by its complex analog, the transfer function. The amplitude transfer function is measured regularly in
contrast to the phase transfer function (PTF). Applications for
the PTF are for example adjusting the emitted pulse shape
for coding based imaging [1], the optimization of ultrasound
contrast imaging methods based on destructive interference
[2], [3] and dissociating the microbubble and setup responses
in single microbubble experiments [4]. A number of acoustic
methods to measure a transducers PTF exists, but they usually
require accurate distance and acoustic wave speed measurements. Small discrepancies in these cause large phase errors,

978-1-4577-0381-2/10/$25.00 2010 IEEE

eg. a variation of 0.05 % on an axial distance measurement

of 15 cm leads to a variation in the PTF measurement of
90 at 5 MHz. In previous work we presented an acoustic
pulse-echo method to measure a circular transducers PTF that
did not require a measurement of the wave travel distance
and the acoustic wave speed [5]. The technique was based on
reciprocity and was derived using an analytical expression for
the field of circular symmetric transducers. In this work we
extend the derivation to rectangular transducers and present
PTF measurements of a square transducer. Furthermore, we
phase calibrate a hydrophone by use of a circular symmetric
transducer calibrated in previous work (PTFs presented in [5]).
The custom calibrated hydrophone is then used to measure the
PTF of the square transducer.
II. M ETHODS
A. Reciprocity and rectangular transducer geometries
The Fraunhofer approximation for the pressure distribution
of a flat rectangular piston transducer, which is excited by
continuous wave excitation, is [6]:
(

2 + 2

0 0 + 02 0

(0 , 0 , ) =
2 (
)
(
)
0
0

(1)

where
(0 , 0 , ) is the pressure at location (0 , 0 , ), is

1, is the angular frequency, 0 is the ambient density

of the propagation medium,
0 the velocity normal to the
transducer surface, = 20 + 02 + 2 , is the axial travel
distance, is the wave number, and are the transducers
width and height, and is the wavelength. In the on-axis case
(1) reduces to:

.
(2)
2
By replacing the on-axis far field pressure produced by a
circular symmetric transducer in the derivation presented in
[5] by equation (2) the reciprocity relation connecting the
receive transfer function ( ) and the transmit transfer function
( ) for rectangular transducers can be derived analogously.
This results in the same relation as for circular symmetric
transducers:

2
=
,
(3)

0 0

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(0, 0, ) = 0

2010 IEEE International Ultrasonics Symposium Proceedings

Where = / , is the open circuit voltage over

the transducer, is the pressure received by the transducer
averaged over its surface, = 0 / , is the voltage over
the transducer electrodes, is the electrical impedance of the
transducer, = and 0 is the small-signal acoustic
wave speed in the propagation medium.
B. Pulse-echo
Assuming linear propagation, the received signal in a pulseecho experiment is described by [5]:
= ,

(4)

where is the attenuation, is the diffraction,

is
the phase change due to acoustic wave travel, is spatial
averaging, is the reflection coefficient of the reflector.
By combining (4) and (3) and assuming specific conditions
for the wave propagation in the medium, the reflector and
the diffraction characteristics of the transducer the following
expressions for ( ) and ( ) can be derived [5]:
( ) () /2
,
(5)
2
( ) + () /2
( ) =
.
(6)
2
These expressions hold under the following conditions [5]:
1) The attenuation of the propagation medium should behave according to a square power law (pure water), so
that dispersion effects are negligible.
2) Phase changes due to reflection should be negligible.
Thus the pressure wave should impact the reflector at
normal incidence and wave propagation through reflector and propagation medium should be almost lossless.
3) The distance between transducer and reflector should be
large enough to approximate diffraction effects by its far
field limit.
4) Spatial averaging effects should be negligible.
5) The transducer should be excited using monofrequency
sine bursts with rectangular envelopes to deal with
acoustic wave travel effects, without measuring the wave
travel distance or speed. If a transducer is excited in
such a manner, it initially vibrates at resonance (transient
regime) prior to the forcing frequency response (steady
state regime). Let us consider a signal received in a
pulse echo experiment ( , solid line in Fig. 1). The
starting point 1 of the signal is constant regardless
of the frequency of the forcing sine. A certain time
after 1 the transient effect due to the step function
has subsided and the transducer responds to the forcing
frequency only (steady state regime). Next, a peak in
the steady state signal is selected, the time of which
is denoted as 2 in Fig. 1. As 1 is constant we may
shift the excitation signal to 1 (dotted line in Fig. 1).
The phase difference between input and output signals
is the relative phase difference between and at
time 2 in Fig. 1). Hence, this phase difference does not
contain effects due to acoustic wave travel.

( ) =

Fig. 1. Pulse-echo response of a transducer excited by a monofrequency

burst with a rectangular envelope. The solid line is the signal received by the
transducer ( ). The dotted line is the time shifted excitation signal ( ).
1 is the starting point of the received signal. The selected peak in the steady
state part of the signal lies at time point 2 .

C. Hydrophone measurement
Assuming linear propagation, the hydrophone signal in a
hydrophone experiment is described by:
= ,

(7)

where is the voltage received by the hydrophone and is

the hydrophone transfer function. Using similar methodology
as described for the pulse-echo measurement this simplifies
to:
( ) = ( ) + ( ) + ( ) /2.
(8)
Using (8) and a calibrated source the receive PTF of a
hydrophone ( ( )) can be measured, or the transmit PTF
( ( )) of a transducer can be measured using a calibrated
hydrophone.
III. S ETUPS , EQUIPMENT AND SIGNAL PROCESSING
A. Setup 1: pulse-echo experiment
Experimental setup 1 consisted of a water tank with the
transducer mounted in its sidewall (see Fig. 2a). An 8.5 cm
thick aluminium slab was used as a flat plate reflector and
was located 59 cm away from the transducer. An arbitrary
waveform generator (33250A, Agilent, Loveland, Colorado)
drove the transducer with 300 cycle sine bursts with amplitude
setting 5 V at a pulse repetition frequency of 500 Hz. The
received signal was digitized by an oscilloscope (9400A,
Lecroy, Geneva, Switzerland) at a sampling rate of 100 MHz.
The input impedance of the oscilloscope was 1 M. The
electrical impedances of the equipment used were measured
using a vector impedance meter (4193A, Hewlett Packard,
Yokogawa, Japan).

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2010 IEEE International Ultrasonics Symposium Proceedings

Fig. 2.

The experimental setup.

B. Setup 2: hydrophone experiment

Experimental setup 2 was equal to setup 1 except for the
replacement of the reflector with a hydrophone (diameter
0.2 mm, Precision Acoustics, Dorchester, UK) mounted in
a holder (see Fig. 2b). The hydrophone was located 18 cm
away from the transducer and aligned on the acoustic axis
of the transducer. An arbitrary waveform generator (33250A,
Agilent, Loveland, Colorado) drove the transducer with 300
cycle sine bursts with amplitude setting 5 V at a pulse
repetition frequency of 500 Hz. The signal received by the
hydrophone was digitized by an oscilloscope (9400A, Lecroy,
Geneva, Switzerland) at a sampling rate of 100 MHz. The
input impedance of the oscilloscope was 50 .
Using setup 2 and the circular symmetric transducer calibrated
in previous work [5] the hydrophone was calibrated at an axial
distance of 18 cm. The hydrophone was then used to measure
the PTF of the square transducer.
C. Signal processing
Each pulse-echo measurement was repeated 128 times and
the result was averaged and upsampled to 5 GHz. The starting
point of the signal (T1 in Fig. 1) was initially obtained by
threshold detection. The threshold level was set equal to the
noise floor, which was measured by averaging 128 time traces
without signal and taking the maximum. The estimate of the
starting point was refined by interpolating from the threshold
voltage level to zero using the first order derivative of the
initial section of the signal. The phase () of the applied
forcing frequency (at time T2 ) in the received signal relative to
the starting point (T1 ) was determined by fitting ( +)
to a window in the steady state regime (located 3 s after
1 ). Here is the amplitude of the signal and the forcing
frequency. In this way was determined for every .
By compensation for the impedance effects of the transmission
and reception circuits is recalculated into ( ),
which is inserted into (5) and (6) to obtain the PTFs.
D. Transducer design and modeling
A single custom built transducer was investigated. It consisted only of a slab of CTS 3203HD piezomaterial (CTS
Corporation, Bloomingdale, Illinois) and was air backed. The

Fig. 3. a) The transmit PTFs of the square transducer as produced by KLM

model simulations (solid line), pulse-echo measurements (dashed line) and
hydrophone measurements (dotted line). The frequency where the transmit
phase is 0 is the resonance frequency. b) The modeled and measured receive
PTFs of the square transducer.

transducer had a square aperture of 13 mm x 13 mm and

had a 4 MHz centre frequency. An in-house implementation
of the KLM model [7][9] was used to simulate the PTFs of
the transducer. The material properties of the CTS 3203HD
piezomaterial were based on the values reported by Sherrit et
al. [10] for the thickness extensional mode.
IV. R ESULTS
Fig. 3a shows the KLM-simulated (solid line), pulse-echo
measured (dashed line) and hydrophone measured (dotted line)
transmit PTFs of the square transducer. Fig. 3b details its
receive PTFs. The pulse-echo and hydrophone measurements
and simulations were in good agreement. The mean differences
between the simulations and the pulse-echo measurements

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2010 IEEE International Ultrasonics Symposium Proceedings

were 14 and 8 for the transmit and receive PTFs respectively. The differences in mean value and shape between the
simulations and pulse-echo measurements are due to alignment
errors and diffraction induced phase bias in the measurements
- they are performed at a distance of 59 cm, but diffraction
is approximated by its far field limit. The mean differences
between the simulations and the hydrophone measurements
were respectively 13 and 7 . Part of the explanation for the
differences in mean value and shape between the simulations
and hydrophone measurements are alignment errors. The other
part has to do with the calibration of the hydrophone, which
was performed using a circular source at an axial distance
of 18 cm. At this axial distance and a 1 - 8 MHz frequency
range diffraction significantly affects the measured PTF of the
hydrophone. By also measuring the square transducers PTF at
an axial distance of 18 cm, these diffraction effects on the PTF
are mostly canceled out. This cancelation is not complete, as
the circular source has a slightly lower surface area compared
to the square transducer. The transducers resonance frequency
was measured to be 3.87 MHz and 3.89 MHz in the pulse-echo
and hydrophone experiments respectively. The KLM simulated
resonance frequency was 4.05 MHz, which differed from the
experimental results by 0.17 MHz. This was likely caused
by the variation of piezomaterial properties between batches.
The shape of the PSF is typical for a weakly damped, forced
harmonic oscillator. The reproducibility of the results was
15 .

[5] P. van Neer, H. Vos, and N. de Jong, Reflector-based phase calibration of ultrasound transducers, Ultrasonics, vol. Article in press,
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Newport Beach, 1997, pp. 158169.

V. D ISCUSSION / CONCLUSIONS
Our pulse-echo method allows for the measurement of the
PTF of rectangular transducers, without measuring the wave
travel distance or speed of sound in the medium. Only basic
laboratory ultrasound equipment is required. Measured PTFs
of a square example transducer were presented showing only
a small difference between measurements and KLM model
simulations (between 7 and 14 ). The reproducibility of the
results was 15 . Moreover, weve shown the feasibility of
using a previously PTF calibrated transducer to measure the
receive PTF of a hydrophone, which was then used to measure
the PTFs of the square transducer.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The financial support of the Dutch Foundation for Technical
Sciences is greatly appreciated.
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