Fabrication of gap-optimized CMUT.

A recently introduced set up of capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducers (cMUT) combines a conductive membrane above a structured sacrificial layer. All previous approaches either require an additional metallic electrode or do not possess a structured sacrificial layer and, consequently, may make exact adjustment of the membrane dimensions difficult. The present set ups are especially suited for the fabrication of cMUT with gap heights ranging between 50 nm and 2 microm between the electrodes.