[projektfu]

My understanding is that the probes are the expensive part. The rest is added value, for sure, but there is something of a monopoly on high quality piezo crystals used in the probes. This ensures that the current players don't compete much on price.

[kelu124]

As a way to go around this issue, I sense a bit of progress through compressed sensing, see for example http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/12/e1701423 . This would enable one (with enough horsepower) to get 4D imaging with a single element. This is very early, but I do plan on using this hardware to test the feasibility of single-piezoelement pseudo-imaging.