Hydrophones to be used in the characterization of medical ultrasonic transducers have
been fabricated using a new polyvinylidene fluoride/trifluoroethylene (VF2/VF3)
copolymer. The copolymer has an advantage over VF2 in that it does not require
prestretching before poling. Thin copolymer films can be cast from solution and then
poled using the corona discharge method. As there is a need for small‐diameter
hydrophones to provide good spatial resolution in measuring highly focused ultrasonic
beams, hydrophones with diameter as small as 0.1 mm have been made. Both
needle‐type and line hydrophones have been tested and their performance reported. In
the case of line hydrophones, the output signal is proportional to the line integral of the
acoustic pressure and a computer tomographic technique has been used to reconstruct the
beam profiles
