The Effect of the Transducer Parameters on Spatial Resolution in Plane-Wave Imaging

Plane-Wave imaging (PWI) can produce a complete image after a single transmission of an unfocused ultrasound beam, and therefore can achieve ultrahigh frame rates of thousands frames per second. Many ultrasound imaging applications, such as shear wave elastography, require ultrahigh frame rates. However, due to the lack of a focusing point in PWI, it is not possible to derive an expression for the spatial resolution based on the f-number. This work aims to study the transducer parameters that affect the imaging quality in PWI in form of spatial resolution. Ultrasound imaging systems with different frequencies, bandwidths and transducer widths at a range of imaging depths are simulated and the effect of each parameter is studied separately. Based on this study, an empirical expression for PWI lateral resolution is produced, which reveals the direct proportion of the lateral resolution with the wavelength and imaging depth and the inverse proportion with the total width of the transducer.