Wearable ultrasound devices are widely used in diagnostics, rehabilitation monitoring, and telemedicine, yet most existing models rely on lead-based piezoelectric ceramics that pose health and environmental risks. The difficulty of balancing performance and safety has driven demand for new ultrasound transducer technologies capable of replacing lead without compromising efficiency. Now, researchers have developed a lead-free ultrasound patch that achieves high imaging performance while ensuring user and environmental safety.

The silicon-based, disposable ultrasound patch, created by a collaborative team that included researchers from the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST, Seoul, South Korea) and Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST, Daejeon, South Korea), delivers superior imaging performance compared to conventional lead-based transducers. The research team fabricated an ultrathin patch only a few hundred micrometers thick by processing silicon into a nanocolumn structure using semiconductor technology.

Unlike traditional transducers, the device eliminates the need for matching and backing layers, maintaining high performance in a flexible and lightweight design. The silicon nanocolumn configuration enables both stable operation and improved output while removing lead entirely. This structural innovation ensures excellent image clarity and user safety, making the patch suitable for diverse clinical settings and continuous patient monitoring.

The patch’s performance was verified through experimental comparisons with commercial transducers. The findings from the study, published in Nature Communications, show that the patch produced over 30% higher output pressure and significantly clearer ultrasound images. In highly mobile regions such as the neck, the patch accurately measured blood flow velocity and vessel diameter, achieving more than 96% accuracy when compared with clinical blood pressure monitors.

The technology’s cost-effectiveness and environmental sustainability offer major advantages for medical imaging and wearable healthcare devices. Because the patch is produced through semiconductor fabrication, it supports large-scale, low-cost manufacturing and generates minimal environmental waste. Its production cost is estimated at only one-twentieth that of traditional lead-based devices. Researchers plan to further assess its safety and reliability in clinical environments and extend its use to early cardiovascular diagnosis, rehabilitation monitoring, and mental health care.

“This research is highly meaningful in that we successfully developed an ultrasound patch that anyone can use safely by replacing harmful lead with silicon,” said Dr. Byung Chul Lee, Senior Researcher at KIST.

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