Dual Flat Flextensional Ultrasound Transducers for Enhancement of Transdermal Drug Delivery

The development of a lightweight, simple-structure and low-power-consumption sonophoresis device for drug delivery is required. For this purpose, a new sonophoresis device with dual flat flextensional ultrasound transducers was fabricated and investigated in this work. When both ultrasound transducers were operated at their fundamental resonance frequency (26.83 kHz), the radiated acoustic intensity ( I sptp ) was about 2 to 4 times higher than that generated by a single ultrasound transducer in the proposed device. The proposed sonophoresis device has the capability to reduce the applied voltage at least twofold. Compared to the ultrasonic probe or converter from a commercial sonicator that weighs about one kilogram, the proposed sonophoresis device with double ultrasound transducers weighs only 73.3 g. All the results showed that the proposed sonophoresis device is feasible for use in practical applications.