Munich: German scientists have invented the world’s smallest ultrasound machine, which is less than the size of a blood cell. What is special is that it uses a completely different method from the current technology of ultrasound.
The invention was made by experts at the Heimlum Holtz Zentrum in Munich, a research center in a vast network of German research centers.
The ultrasound sensor in this device is 220 nanometers wide and 500 nanometers long, about 350 times thinner than normal human hair. It is made in much the same way as silicon microprocessors or microchips.
It should be noted that in the ultrasound machine, images are taken with the help of sound waves which cannot be heard by human ears. The ultrasound machine emits these waves that hit the internal parts of the human body and return, which the machine receives through its component called “transducer”.
Any ultrasound machine commonly used in hospitals and maternity homes, etc., relies on a natural phenomenon called a “piezoelectric effect” in which electricity is generated as a result of an increase in pressure on an object. Is.
The technical flaw in this method is that the ultrasound machine cannot be reduced to a certain threshold, while its sensitivity cannot be greatly increased.
This short-lived “microscopic” ultrasound machine, developed by German scientists, uses “photoacoustics” to solve this problem.
According to a report published in the latest issue of the research journal “Nature”, this tiny mini-machine can easily detect ultrasound waves of up to 230 MHz at minus 6 decibels.
Simply put, the sensitivity of this new invention is a thousand times higher than the current ultrasound machines, while the efficiency is 100 million times higher.
Just as millions of transistors in a microprocessor are on the same chip, so too will future ultrasound devices be short and consist of millions of such microscopic ultrasound detectors at the same time.
Experts hope that once in action, the machine will be able to photograph the internal parts of the human body as if we were able to magnify small objects through a microscope.