Ultrasound powered implants: design, performance considerations and simulation results
Open accessAbstract
Ultrasounds (US) has been used in the past decades as a non-invasive imaging modality. Although employed extensively in clinical applications for soft tissue imaging, the acoustic beams can also be used for sensing and actuation for biological implants. In this paper we present a unified three dimensional (3D) computational framework to simulate the performance and response of deeply implanted devices to US stimulation and composed by a double piezoelectric layer with different material composition and configurations. The model combines the temporally-invariant distribution of the scattered pressure field arising from the presence of scatterers and attenuators in the domain of simulation, with the time-delay propagation of waves caused by refraction, to solve the Forward Problem in US within the breast and lower abdominal regions. It was found that a lens-shaped implant produces higher peak echoes in the breast for frequencies ≤ 6 MHz whereas, in the liver, similar strengths are obtained for the lens and disk-shaped implants in the higher spectrum. Regarding material composition, a combination of LiNbO 3 with PZT-5A yielded higher amplitude signals, when the double layer thickness is comparable to the wavelength of excitation. Experimental validation of the proposed model was carried out in the presence of a synthetic anatomical phantom of the breast and water tank to investigate the acoustic signals generated by disk-shaped implants when stimulated by external US sources in the harmonic and impulsive regimes of wave propagation. The implantation of a double piezoelectric layer inside the human body can, in the future, provide a high resolution system for the detection of surgical site infection as well as tumour growth and other systemic inflammatory responses originating deeply in soft tissues.
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Ultrasound is generally considered safe due to its non-ionizing nature.
“Ultrasound, widely utilized in various medical applications, is generally considered safe due to its non-ionizing nature (Seo et al., 2015; Rosa and Yang, 2020).”
From Comparative analysis of energy transfer mechanisms for neural implants (2024) · cites this paper as Rosa and Yang, 2020
The Introduction (page unavailable) describes ultrasound as widely used in diagnostic and therapeutic applications and discusses operating within safe biological limits. It does not say that ultrasound is generally considered safe because it is non-ionizing, so the stated reason for safety is unsupported by this source. (LLM, conf=0.85)
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Aarle, D. A. C. V., Lopata, R. G. P., & Schwab, H. (2025) · Ultrasonic Imaging · doi:10.1177/01617346251406563
- Authors
- Rosa, B. M. G., & Yang, G.-Z.
- Affiliations
- Imperial College London (GB)
- Shanghai Jiao Tong University (CN)
- Corresponding author
- Rosa, Bruno Miguel Gil
- Venue
- Scientific Reports
- Published
- 2020-04-16
- Volume
- 10
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 6537-6537
- ISSN
- 2045-2322 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC7162879
- OpenAlex
- W3016310507
- Cited by
- 18
- References
- 46
- Citations by year
- 2025: 1 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 2 · 2021: 8 · 2020: 3
- FWCI
- 1.66
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Locations
- Scientific Reports (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Spiral (Imperial College London) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Funders
- RCUK | Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/L014149/1, EP/R026092/1)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Mechanics of Materials › Ultrasonics and Acoustic Wave Propagation
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and Imaging › Ultrasound Imaging and Elastography
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Biomedical Engineering › Ultrasound and Hyperthermia Applications
- Keywords
- piezoelectric layers, lithium niobate, PZT-5A, acoustic scattering, breast tissue, liver tissue, acoustic attenuation, soft tissue imaging
- MeSH terms
- Acoustics, Breast, Computer Simulation, Electricity, Female, Humans, Numerical Analysis, Computer-Assisted, Prosthesis Design, Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted, Transducers, Ultrasonography, Reproducibility of Results, Phantoms, Imaging, Prostheses and Implants, Imaging, Three-Dimensional
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