I want to make an amplifier receiver circuit that will receive a 1Mhz ultrasound wave and amplify it. What variables do I need to figure out before I can start designing the circuit? Also what are the basic steps to designing this particular circuit? I think the ultrasound wave is received by a sensor and then goes through a filter circuit and then the amplifier and then the output?

 

It might be very helpful if you describe the purpose of the receiver and the nature of the signal it will receive.

 

So our signal source is an ultrasonic pulsar-receiver. http://telab.vuse.vanderbilt.edu/docs/specs/Olympus-5072PR.pdf A transducer will be attached to it to send out our signal, specifically an immersion transducer. The sensors we have are piezoelectric sensors and quartz sensors. The sensor would receive the signal and then amplify it. The amplified signal would be used to signal to an LED driver circuit to turn on/off an LED light. So we were told to make a simple amplifier circuit first to test how much our signal is amplified before worrying about the LED driver circuit. I also understand that it is possible that the water column may absorb too much of the signal, but we were told to just make it anyways so we could just test.

*I am part of the original poster's group.*

 

I would approach this empirically.
Do you have two of the Olympus pulser-receiver?
Use one unit to transmit the signal and the other to receive. Examine the received signal on an oscilloscope.