Simple, reproducible, acoustically transparent pressure transducer with an 18-ns rise time

We describe an inexpensive, unbacked, solid dielectric capacitance-like pressure transducer and preamplifier. The device has an adjustable sensitivity of about 0.5 μV/Pa into a 50-Ω load, a geometry-determined rise time of about 12 ns, and a flat frequency response from a few kHz to its resonant frequency of about 40 MHz. The geometry and method of construction make it simple to calculate response characteristics and it is usable at pressures from 103 Pa to at least 107 Pa