A wideband high-voltage power amplifier post-linearizer for medical ultrasound transducers

The medical ultrasound transducer is a principal component in ultrasound systems, as it significantly influences system performance. The high-voltage power amplifier (HVPA) is the key ultrasound transmitter component and interfaces with the medical ultrasound transducer. Therefore, the performance of the HVPA critically affects the echo signal quality of the ultrasound transducer. As they are inherently non-linear devices, harmonic distortion of echo signals generated by the ultrasound transducers would critically deteriorate the echo signal quality in ultrasound systems. The primary aim of this research is to integrate a novel post-linearizer into the HVPA to suppress harmonic distortion in medical ultrasound transducers. Moreover, this study is based on the assumption that linearizing the HVPA could reduce the harmonic distortion components of the echo signals. The developed HVPA with post-linearizer was tested in an ultrasound microscopy system in order to demonstrate the harmonic suppression capability on the echo signal generated by the ultrasound transducer. When 10 MHz, 5-cycle, 26 dB_m input power was sent to the HVPA with and without the post-linearizer circuits, the measured second-, third-, fourth- and fifth- harmonic distortions of a 10 MHz transducer with the post-linearizer (-13.11 dB, -10.81 dB, -16.33 dB, and -22.78 dB) were suppressed to a greater degree than those of the same transducer without the post-linearizer (-4.58 dB, -8.87 dB, -10.51 dB, and -15.31 dB).. Therefore, we conclude that the addition of the post-linearizer to the HVPA is a potentially useful electronic technique for improving echo signal quality in medical ultrasound transducers.