The Laboratory of Acustoelectronics (ACULAB) was founded in 1996 at the Department of Electronic Engineering of Roma Tre University. ACULAB obtained more than 3 M€ funding through participation in national and international research programs. The obtained funds have been entirely employed in researching on Capacitive Micromachined Ultrasonic Transducers (CMUT) for medical imaging applications. In the last ten years, ACULAB participated in an academic spin-off in collaboration with Esaote S.p.A. ACULAB currently collaborates with several national and international universities, research centers and companies in the framework of national and European research programs, and private research and development contracts.
ACULAB was the first university laboratory in the world to demonstrate in-vivo imaging with a CMUT ultrasound probe (2003), using a commercial ultrasound scanner. During the last ten years, ACULAB developed several CMUT 1D and 2D ultrasound probes, based on a proprietary CMUT technology, in the mid to high frequency range (4-18 MHz) for different medical diagnostic applications. ACULAB is equipped with a computer room with modelling software tools internally developed for the design of CMUT transducers, a clean room for CMUT probe packaging, a machine shop, and a laboratory for the characterization of CMUT-based transducers and probes.