Patent ID: 8147409

Claim:
A method of transducer excitation in a medical ultrasound imaging system having a waveform generator and a transducer, the method comprising the steps of: (a) generating by the waveform generator an excitation waveform signal with three base waveforms (A, B, C), each of which is a unipolar pulses, wherein the waveform signal represents a gated, stepped approximation of a Gaussian envelope multiplied by a cosine carrier signal, with said three base waveforms satisfying the relationships of: voltage-time product of positive (A+B)=negative C, where C comprises two pulses having the same duration; t 1 =2*t 2 −T 0 /2, where t 1 is the duration of the A pulse, t 2 is the duration of each of the pulses of C, and T 0 /2 is the duration of the B pulse and T 0 is the fundamental frequency; (b) selecting a carrier frequency signal, F 0 , in accordance with a fundamental frequency of the transducer, F 0 =1/T 0 ; and (c) applying the excitation waveform signal to the transducer.