Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2023 Mar 26;23(7):3466.
doi: 10.3390/s23073466.

An Inverse Class-E Power Amplifier for Ultrasound Transducer

Hojong Choi  1
Affiliations

An Inverse Class-E Power Amplifier for Ultrasound Transducer

Hojong Choi. Sensors (Basel). .

Abstract

An inverse Class-E power amplifier was designed for an ultrasound transducer. The proposed inverse Class-E power amplifier can be useful because of the low series inductance values used in the output matching network that helps to reduce signal distortions. Therefore, a newly designed Class-E power amplifier can obtain a proper echo signal quality. The measured output voltage, voltage gain, voltage gain difference, and power efficiency were 50.1 V, 22.871 dB, 0.932 dB, and 55.342%, respectively. This low voltage difference and relatively high efficiency could verify the capability of the ultrasound transducer. The pulse-echo response experiment using an ultrasound transducer was performed to verify the capability of the proposed inverse Class-E power amplifier. The obtained echo signal amplitude and pulse width were 6.01 mVp-p and 0.81 μs, respectively. The -6 dB bandwidth and center frequencies of the echo signal were 27.25 and 9.82 MHz, respectively. Consequently, the designed Class-E power amplifier did not significantly alter the performance of the center frequency of the ultrasound transducer; therefore, it could be employed particularly in certain ultrasound applications that require high linearity and reasonable power efficiency.

Keywords: inverse Class-E power amplifier; ultrasound system; ultrasound transducer.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest. The funders had no role in the study design; collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; writing of the manuscript; or the decision to publish the results.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Concept of a Class-E power amplifier for ultrasound transducer.
Figure 2
Figure 2
(a) Schematic diagram and (b) printed circuit board of the designed inverse Class-E power amplifier. (c) The magnitude and (d) phase of the impedance of the ultrasound transducer.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Schematic diagram of the input matching network.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Schematic of the output matching network.
Figure 5
Figure 5
(a) Measurement setup and (b) photo for the performance of the designed inverse Class-E power amplifier.
Figure 6
Figure 6
The experimental (a) output voltage, (b) voltage gain, (c) output voltage difference, and (d) voltage gain difference versus input voltage of the inverse Class-E power amplifier.
Figure 6
Figure 6
The experimental (a) output voltage, (b) voltage gain, (c) output voltage difference, and (d) voltage gain difference versus input voltage of the inverse Class-E power amplifier.
Figure 7
Figure 7
Measured (a) output voltage and (b) voltage gain versus input frequency, (c) PAE versus input voltage, and (d) PAE versus input frequency of the inverse Class-E power amplifier.
Figure 7
Figure 7
Measured (a) output voltage and (b) voltage gain versus input frequency, (c) PAE versus input voltage, and (d) PAE versus input frequency of the inverse Class-E power amplifier.
Figure 8
Figure 8
(a) Measurement setup and (b) photo of the pulse-echo response with designed inverse Class-E power amplifier and ultrasound transducer. The measured echo signal amplitude and spectrum in the (c) time and (d) frequency domains when using the designed inverse Class-E power amplifier and ultrasound transducer.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Suri J.S., Kathuria C., Chang R.-F., Molinar F., Fenster A. Advances in Diagnostic and Therapeutic Ultrasound Imaging. Artech House; Norwood, MA, USA: 2008.
    1. Jung U., Choi J.H., Choo H.T., Kim G.U., Ryu J., Choi H. Fully Customized Photoacoustic System Using Doubly Q-Switched Nd: YAG Laser and Multiple Axes Stages for Laboratory Applications. Sensors. 2022;22:2621. doi: 10.3390/s22072621. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Jung U., Ryu J., Choi H. Optical Light Sources and Wavelengths within the Visible and Near-Infrared Range Using Photoacoustic Effects for Biomedical Applications. Biosensors. 2022;12:1154. doi: 10.3390/bios12121154. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Choi H., Jeong J.J., Kim J. Development of an Estimation Instrument of Acoustic Lens Properties for Medical Ultrasound Transducers. J. Healthcare Eng. 2017;2017:6580217. doi: 10.1155/2017/6580217. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Postema M. Fundamentals of Medical Ultrasound. Taylor and Francis; New York, NY, USA: 2011.

LinkOut - more resources