Imaging gigahertz surface acoustic waves through the photoelastic effect

This paper presents experiments and in-depth analysis of the imaging of surface acoustic waves by means of the photoelastic effect. Gigahertz surface acoustic waves, generated by optical pump pulses in a thin gold film on a glass substrate, are imaged in the time domain by monitoring ultrafast changes in optical reflectivity. We demonstrate how images of the in-plane acoustic shear strain component can be obtained by measurements with two different optical probe pulse polarizations incident from the substrate side

Perfect acoustic bandgap metabeam based on a quadruple-mode resonator array

Solid structures guide a multitude of elastic modes of different polarizations including both compression and shear, and the nature of the elastic constant tensor implies a much richer behavior than in optics. Here, we introduce a metamaterial in the form of a rectangular cross section beam of a single isotropic material that can simultaneously suppress all elastic-wave polarizations in the beam over a range of frequencies in the kHz range. This is experimentally achieved by machining replicas of a subwavelength unit cell in an aluminum metabeam based on a planar resonator with interconnected ribs, showing complex vibrational degrees of freedom that allow it to couple to compressional, in-plane shear, flexural and torsional vibrations, that is, all four existing mode types. The result is a lightweight structure that can forbid all possible acoustic modes over the metamaterial bandgap frequency range, an exotic behavior that opens up diverse applications in easily manufacturable vibration isolation structures and acoustic wave control

Tomographic reconstruction of picosecond acoustic strain propagation

By means of an ultrafast optical technique, picosecond acoustic strain pulses in a transparent medium are tomographically visualized. The authors reconstruct strain pulses in Au-coated glass from time-domain reflectivity changes as a function of the optical angle of incidence, with ～1 ps temporal and ～100 nm spatial resolutions. © 2007 American Institute of Physics

A method for the frequency control in time-resolved two-dimensional gigahertz surface acoustic wave imaging

We describe an extension of the time-resolved two-dimensional gigahertz surface acoustic wave imaging based on the optical pump-probe technique with periodic light source at a fixed repetition frequency. Usually such imaging measurement may generate and detect acoustic waves with their frequencies only at or near the integer multiples of the repetition frequency. Here we propose a method which utilizes the amplitude modulation of the excitation pulse train to modify the generation frequency free from the mentioned limitation, and allows for the first time the discrimination of the resulted upper- and lower-side-band frequency components in the detection. The validity of the method is demonstrated in a simple measurement on an isotropic glass plate covered by a metal thin film to extract the dispersion curves of the surface acoustic waves

Wave-canceling acoustic metarod architected with single material building blocks

Preventing elastic waves from traveling down thin structures is a subject of great interest from the point of view of both physics and applications. It represents a problem-mirrored by the case of light in waveguides-that has broad implications. To completely prohibit sound waves in a given frequency range in rods, for example, all axially propagating acoustic eigenmodes must exhibit strong damping. Here, we demonstrate experimentally and by simulation a metamaterial rod made from a single material that can simultaneously shut out all elastic-wave polarizations, namely longitudinal, flexural, and torsional modes, in a band in the sub-kHz range. We first bond five acrylic building blocks together to make a subwavelength resonator and then fix an array of these inside an acrylic tube to form a cylindrical metarod that inhibits sound transmission in the metamaterial bandgap frequency range. Applications include vibration control and earthquake mitigation

Nanoscale thermoelastic probing of megahertz thermal diffusion

The authors demonstrate a method to probe thermal diffusion at megahertz frequencies with nanometer lateral resolution in a thin opaque film on a transparent substrate. They map photothermally induced megahertz surface vibrations in an atomic force microscope using tightly focused optical illumination from the substrate side. By comparison with a theoretical model of the surface displacement field, the authors derive the thermal diffusivity of a thin chromium film on a silica substrate

Nanoscale mechanical contacts mapped by ultrashort time-scale electron transport

Mechanical contacts are crucial to systems in engineering, electronics and biology. The microscopic nature of the contacting surfaces determines how they mesh on the nanoscale. There is thus much interest in methods that can map the actual area of two surfaces in contact-the real contact area during the loading or unloading phases. We address this problem using an ultrafast optical technique to generate non-equilibrium electrons that diffuse across a nanoscale mechanical contact between two thin gold films deposited on sapphire. We image this process in the contact and near-contact regions to micron resolution in situ using transient optical reflectivity changes on femtosecond time scales. By use of a model of the ultrashort-time electron dynamics, we account for an up to similar to 40%dropin the transient optical reflectivity change on contact. We thereby show how the real contact area of a nanoscale contact can be mapped. Applications include the probing of microelectronic mechanical devices