9

as near field or Fresnel zone. At larger distances, the natural divergence begins to

spread the transverse extent of the beam, referred to as far field or Fraunhofer zone

(Figure 2.4).

t
(a) 2a

-1,-,-r---+-__L
l·OI-r-;.--k--+--~';""oo;;;;::----1r----t-----+-----I

(b)
...~ 0·5 HtHH--t-r--J'----i'-----t--.=o..;o;:::::---t--

O~~-~---~--~---~---~--~
0·0 (i)
Axial distance (>• .1 a Z )

(c) @"-···'······8:------0····
"0" '.' ,: "., - . ·-.:.~\
:",., __ , . ) .:"',, ", ['0." (,,)

(i ) (ii) (iii) (iv) (v) (vi)

Figure 2.4: The ultrasonic field of a plane disc transducer [ (a) conventional textbook
representation of the field, (b) relative intensity distribution along the
central axis of the beam. and (c) ring diagrams showing the energy
distribution of the beam sections at positions indicated in (b) 1

The lateral resolution for pulse-echo system is most closely related to the

transducer beam width at the depth of interest. The beam width from an unfocused

transducer is generally too wide to give adequate lateral resolution. Therefore, a lens

or other focussing scheme (such as a spherical reflector or focused annular array of

transducers) is sometimes employed to converge the radiating beam into a relatively