Ultrasonic teeth cleaning appliance having spatial, temporal and/or frequency variations
AssigneeKoninklijke Philips Electronics N.V.
InventorJohn Douglas Fraser
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Abstract
The appliance includes an appliance body (12) as well as a system for producing microbubbles (20) and a system for producing an ultrasound signal beam (22) in a frequency range which activates at least some of the microbubbles. The appliance includes at least one of the following: (a) an array of ultrasound transducer elements (40) which produce a plurality of ultrasound signal beams; (b) an amplitude modulation assembly (51) for modulating the amplitude of the ultrasound signal; and (c) a frequency modulation system (61) for changing the frequency of the ultrasound signals over a selected range, to impact a range of microbubble sizes.
Claims15
An appliance for cleaning teeth, comprising:
- an appliance body (12);
- a system for producing a slurry of microbubbles (20) and directing them to the region of the teeth to be cleaned;
- and
- a system for producing ultrasound signal beams (22) with a frequency in the range of 100 KHz to 1 MHz, directed to and actuating the microbubbles for cleaning, wherein the system for producing the ultrasound signals includes at least one of the following:
- (a) an array of transducer elements (40) to produce the ultrasound signals;
- (b) an amplitude modulation assembly (51) for modulating the amplitude of the ultrasound signals;
- and (c) a frequency modulation system (61) for changing the frequency of the ultrasound signals over a predetermined range.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.