Investigating a CMUT's Ability to Achieve Non-linear Contrast Enhancement

Capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducers (CMUTs) are inherently non-linear and often believed to be unsuitable for non-linear contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) imaging. The ability of CMUTs to perform contrast-enhanced ultrasound imaging has been investigated by experimentally evaluating the contrast-to-noise ratio (CTR) and its variation with emitted pressure. This has been evaluated using amplitude modulation, pulse inversion and B-mode imaging sequences. The study shows that the CTR of the AM-mode was 7.5 dB higher than the B-mode on average, while the PI-mode is 5.9 dB lower than the B-mode. This indicates that contrast-enhancement can be achieved with a CMUT when a suitable image sequence is chosen.