Spectral Characterization of PVDF Sensor Designs for Acoustic Spectroscopy

Polyvinylidene difluoride (PVDF) sensors are of interest to ultrasonic applications due to their high sensitivity and efficient acoustic coupling to the environment. PVDF sensors for scientific applications typically possess a flat frequency response to faithfully reproduce spectral components of an unknown source. However, in industrial sensing applications higher responsivity is desirable even at the cost of decreased flatness in the spectral responsivity. To better understand the trade-offs between intrinsic responsivity and spectral response we examine four PVDF sensor variants for spectral responsivity as a function of thickness and find that increased responsivity is correlated with a strong non-linear frequency dependence.