Concave ultrasound transducers and 3d arrays

A method of producing volumetric data representing a region of interest within an object to be imaged, the method comprising:

• transmitting ultrasound energy as an unfocused ultrasound ping towards a scatterer with a transmit aperture comprising at least one transducer element on an ultrasound transducer array;
• receiving ultrasound echoes from the scatterer with a first receive aperture comprising a first receiver group of transducer elements on the ultrasound transducer array;
• coherently combining echoes received by the elements of the first receive aperture;
• forming first volumetric data with the coherently combined ultrasound echoes received by the first receive aperture;
• receiving ultrasound echoes from the scatterer with a second receive aperture comprising a second receiver group of transducer elements on the ultrasound transducer array;
• coherently combining echoes received by the elements of the second receive aperture;
• forming second volumetric data with the coherently combined ultrasound echoes received by the second receive aperture;
• and
• incoherently combining the first volumetric data and the second volumetric data to produce the volumetric data representing the region of interest.

An ultrasound imaging system, comprising:

• an ultrasound transducer array arranged to transmit and receive ultrasound energy into a region of interest to be imaged;
• a first transmit aperture comprising a first transmitter group of at least one element in the ultrasound transducer array configured to insonify a scatterer in the region of interest with ultrasound energy unfocused in the region of interest;
• a first receive aperture comprising a first group of elements in the ultrasound transducer array configured to receive ultrasound echoes from the scatterer, the first receive aperture being located apart from the first transmit aperture;
• a second receive aperture comprising a first group of elements in the ultrasound transducer array configured to receive ultrasound echoes from the scatterer, the second receive aperture being located apart from the first transmit aperture and the first receive aperture;
• and
• a control system in electronic communication with the ultrasound transducer array, the control system configured to combine echoes received by the elements of the first receive aperture coherently without phase cancellation to form first image data and to combine echoes received by the elements of the second receive aperture coherently without phase cancellation to form second image data, the control system also configured to form an ultrasound image or volumetric data of the region of interest by incoherently combining the first image data with the second image data.