Patent ID: 7285898

Claim:
An ultrasonic transducer comprising: an acoustic matching layer formed by layering at least a first acoustic matching layer made up of a hard material, and a second acoustic matching layer made up of a soft material; a piezoelectric member having a length dimension shorter than the acoustic matching layer, the piezoelectric member being fixed and disposed at a predetermined position on a surface of the first acoustic matching layer, and divided into a plurality of piezoelectric devices in the disposed state; and a transducer shape-formative member made up of a hard material being fixed and disposed on a portion of the surface of the first acoustic matching layer side making up the acoustic matching layer on which the piezoelectric devices are disposed, the portion protruding beyond the piezoelectric devices, wherein the piezoelectric devices are disposed on an inner circumferential surface side of the acoustic matching layer and arrayed in a predetermined shape.