Patent ID: 8182428

Claim:
An acoustic transducer array probe for transmission from a front face of said probe of acoustic waves in a high frequency (HF) band and at least a 1 St lower frequency (LF1) band and reception of acoustic waves at least in the HF band, the acoustic transducer array probe comprising: a transducer structure including different arrays of transducer elements configured for respective HF and the LF1 electro-acoustic transduction, the array for the HF electro-acoustic transduction having HF array elements and the array for the LF1 electro-acoustic transduction having LF1 array elements, and radiation surfaces for the HF band and the LF1 band, wherein at least a portion of said radiation surfaces for the HF and LF1 bands is common in a same common radiation surface region of the transducer structure, wherein the LF1 array elements within the common radiation surface have larger radiation surfaces with larger distance between neighboring element centers, than do the HF array elements within the common radiation surface, and wherein the radiation surfaces include at least an LF1 transmit surface for LF1 band transmission and an HF transmit surface for HF band transmission, an outer boundary of said LF1 transmit surface extends at least in a region outside an outer boundary of said HF transmit surface.