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Ultrasound is sound with frequencies greater than 20 kilohertz. [1] This frequency is the approximate upper audible limit of human hearing in healthy young adults. The physical principles of acoustic waves apply to any frequency range, including ultrasound. Ultrasonic devices operate with frequencies from 20 kHz up to several gigahertz.
While ultrasound waves propagate through a medium, the amplitude of the wave is continually reduced or weakened with the distance it travels. This is known as attenuation and is due to the scattering or deflecting of energy signals as the wave propagates and the conversion of some of the energy to heat energy within the medium.
Ultrasound transmitters can also use non-piezoelectric principles such as magnetostriction. Materials with this property change size slightly when exposed to a magnetic field and make practical transducers. A capacitor ("condenser") microphone has a thin diaphragm that responds to ultrasound waves.
Approximate frequency ranges corresponding to ultrasound, with rough guide of some applications. Ultrasound is sound waves with frequencies higher than 20,000 Hz. Ultrasound is not different from audible sound in its physical properties, but cannot be heard by humans. Ultrasound devices operate with frequencies from 20 kHz up to several gigahertz.
Examples of acoustic waves include audible sound from speakers, seismic waves causing ground vibrations, and ultrasound used for medical imaging. Understanding acoustic waves is crucial in fields like acoustics, physics, engineering, and medicine, with applications in sound design, noise reduction, and diagnostic imaging.
Medical ultrasound includes diagnostic techniques (mainly imaging techniques) using ultrasound, as well as therapeutic applications of ultrasound. In diagnosis, it is used to create an image of internal body structures such as tendons, muscles, joints, blood vessels, and internal organs, to measure some characteristics (e.g., distances and velocities) or to generate an informative audible sound.
Sound from ultrasound is the name given here to the generation of audible sound from modulated ultrasound without using an active receiver. This happens when the modulated ultrasound passes through a nonlinear medium which acts, intentionally or unintentionally, as a demodulator .
Ultrasonic hearing is a recognised auditory effect which allows humans to perceive sounds of a much higher frequency than would ordinarily be audible using the inner ear, usually by stimulation of the base of the cochlea through bone conduction.