About the project
With their outstandingly large penetration depth, ultrasonic waves allow safe and non-invasive detection and imaging in deep tissue of human body with acoustic contrast. Light-induced ultrasonic waves can also identify various biomolecules and biofunctions in and beneath the skin without the need for acoustic contrast. Continuous and non-invasive detection and imaging for various vascular and cardiac functions and conditions would enable more effective monitoring of human health. This demands for next generation ultrasonic technology.
In this project, nano-structured piezoelectric materials and high-performance flexible ultrasonic transducers will be designed, fabricated, and evaluated, with the aim of applying these to continuous biomedical monitoring. Electromechanical response of the piezoelectric materials will be improved through high order polarization alignment achieved by nano-confined crystallization.
Ultrasonic signals will be captured and analysed by the flexible transducers. Their dramatically varied responsibility will correspond to the different modalities of the ultrasonic waves, such as for distinguishing the longitudinal and shear modes. Machine learning will be applied as an option to further improve the signal interpretation and imaging algorithm development.
This is a split-site project between the University of Southampton and A*STAR IMRE in Singapore. The successful candidate will be supervised by Dr Suan Hui Pu, Prof Liudi Jiang, and Prof Kui Yao (A*STAR IMRE).
