Nanoparticle acoustic transducers

Introduction

There has been much interest in the optical and mechanical properties of solid and core-shell nanoparticles. Our interest stems from the ability of such devices to interact with ultrasound of very short wavelength allowing the possibility of high resolution acoustic imaging.

There are a number of different fabrication approaches that could be adopted for making nano ultrasonic transducers. Previously, a plate transducer for cell imaging has been developed, but making the lateral dimensions of the transducer smaller than one micron is challenging. An alternative approach to overcome this difficulty and to increase the frequency is to make transducers using nanoparticles.

Nanoparticle transducers have some attractions:

• Small size
• Can be made in large quantities
• Easy symmetry
• Can exploit plasmonics to enhance the detection sensitivity (for metal particles)