志村 蟄壼沁, 武田 志郎, 山田 勇, 並木 文博, 早川 健一, 川辺 憲二, 渡辺 一宏

Takaki SHIMURA, Shiro TAKEDA, Isamu YAMADA, Fumihiro NAMIKI, Kenichi HAYAKAWA, Kenji KAWABE, Kazuhiro WATANABE

富士通研究所

Fujitsu Laboratories Ltd.

キーワード : Acoustic coupler, Stand off, PVA gel

Although acoustic couplers are widely used to stand off an ultrasonic probe from the surface of a body when conducting a peripheral diagnosis, and to establish close contact between this probe and an uneven body such as thyroid gland, they have poor acoustic characteristics for human body matching or weak mechanical strength. Using PVA and water, many samples are produced with different fabrication parameters (the concentration of PVA, the freezing temperature and the number of freezing and thawing process). Their acoustic and mechanical chracteristics are measured. It can be clear that PVA gel at a content of 5-15 wt% exhibits very good acoustical and mechanical fitting to the human body and the frequency dependent attenuation is extremely low (around 0.05 dB/cm/MHz) compared with conventional sold coupler (1.6 dB/cm/MHz). Using this gel, a newly designed stand off can be fabricated to ensure good image quality and easy one hand operation.