World's Smallest Ultrasound Detector is Tinier Than a Blood Cell
upstart writes in with an IRC submission:
World's smallest ultrasound detector is tinier than a blood cell:
Scientists in Germany have succeeded in developing the smallest ultrasound detector ever created, which is tinier than a blood cell and opens up new possibilities in what is known as super-resolution imaging. The researchers describe the results as "breathtaking," and hope the technology could allow for the study of biological tissue in unprecedented detail.
Developed by scientists at the Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen (German Research Center for Environmental Health) and the Technical University of Munich, the new device represents something of a departure from the technology behind traditional ultrasound imaging, which usually relies on what are known as piezoelectric devices that take the pressure created by ultrasound waves and turn it into an electric voltage.
The image quality produced through this method is directly tied to the size of the piezoelectric detector, with the smaller the detector the higher the resolution, but this in turn compromises the sensitivity of the device. The authors of the new study detail a solution to this problem, by turning to a different type of imaging technology that relies on silicon photonics.
[...] The research was published in the journal Nature.
Journal Reference:
Rami Shnaiderman, Georg Wissmeyer, Okan Ulgen, et al. A submicrometre silicon-on-insulator resonator for ultrasound detection, Nature (DOI: 10.1038/s41586-020-2685-y)
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