Articles | Volume 14, issue 2
https://doi.org/10.5194/jsss-14-227-2025
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https://doi.org/10.5194/jsss-14-227-2025
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21 Oct 2025
Regular research article | Highlight paper |  | 21 Oct 2025

Local pressure field distribution of bistable PMUTs for distance sensing

Michael Schneider, Mahdi Mortada, Dominik Mayrhofer, Manfred Kaltenbacher, and Ulrich Schmid

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Cited articles

Akasheh, F., Myers, T., Fraser, J. D., Bose, S., and Bandyopadhyay, A.: Development of piezoelectric micromachined ultrasonic transducers, Sensors and Actuators A: Physical, 111, 275–287, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sna.2003.11.022, 2004. 
Akhbari, S., Sammoura, F., Eovino, B., Yang, C., and Lin, L.: Bimorph Piezoelectric Micromachined Ultrasonic Transducers, Journal of Microelectromechanical Systems, 25, 326–336, https://doi.org/10.1109/JMEMS.2016.2516510, 2016. 
Akhbari, S., Sammoura, F., Shelton, S., Yang, C., Horsley, D., and Lin, L.: Highly responsive curved aluminum nitride pMUT, 27th IEEE MEMS, 26–30 January 2014, 124–127, https://doi.org/10.1109/MEMSYS.2014.6765589, 2014. 
Akhbari, S., Sammoura, F., Yang, C., Heidari, A., Horsley, D., and Lin, L.: Self-curved diaphragms by stress engineering for highly responsive pMUT, 28th IEEE MEMS, 18–22 January 2015, 837–840, https://doi.org/10.1109/MEMSYS.2015.7051089, 2015. 
Baborowski, J., Ledermann, N., and Muralt, P.: Piezoelectric micromachined transducers (PMUT's) based on PZT thin films, 2002 IEEE Ultrasonics Symposium 2002 Proceedings, 8–11 Oct. 2002, vol. 1052, 1051–1054, doi:10.1109/ULTSYM.2002.1192475, 2002. 
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Short summary
Bistability is a mechanical phenomenon resulting in two stable, switchable states similar to a light switch. Micromachined piezoelectric bistable loudspeakers can utilize this effect to generate ultrasonic pulses with substantial loudness for applications such as distance measurements. In this work, we study different aspects of such a micromachined ultrasonic loudspeaker and demonstrate that such a device is feasible for ranging applications.
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