Richard J. Smith

Determination of crystallographic orientation of large grain metals with surface acoustic waves

A previously described laser ultrasonic technique known as spatially resolved acoustic spectroscopy (SRAS) can be used to image surface microstructure, using the local surface acoustic wave (SAW) velocity as a contrast mechanism. It is shown here that measuring the SAW velocity in multiple directions can be used to determine the crystallographic orientation of grains. The orientations are determined by fitting experimentally measured velocities to theoretical velocities. Using this technique the orientations of 12 nickel and 3 aluminum single crystal samples have been measured, and these are compared with x-ray Laue backreflection (LBR) measurements with good agreement. The root mean square difference between SRAS and LBR measurements in terms of an R-value is less than 4.1°. The influence of systematic errors in the SAW velocity determination due to instrument miscalibration, which affects the accurate determination of the planes, is discussed. SRAS has great potential for complementary measurements or even for replacing established orientation determination and imaging techniques.

Spatially resolved acoustic spectroscopy for rapid imaging of material microstructure and grain orientation

Measuring the grain structure of aerospace materials is very important to understand their mechanical properties and in-service performance. Spatially resolved acoustic spectroscopy is an acoustic technique utilizing surface acoustic waves to map the grain structure of a material. When combined with measurements in multiple acoustic propagation directions, the grain orientation can be obtained by fitting the velocity surface to a model. The new instrument presented here can take thousands of acoustic velocity measurements per second. The spatial and velocity resolution can be adjusted by simple modification to the system; this is discussed in detail by comparison of theoretical expectations with experimental data.

Design and fabrication of nanoscale ultrasonic transducers

The development of nanometre sized ultrasonic transducers is important in both biological and industrial applications. The small size can be important in its own right or necessary in order to generate acoustic waves with nanometric wavelengths. Potential applications of nanotransducers range from embedded sensors through to sub optical wavelength acoustic imaging. In this paper we discuss the design and fabrication of nanoscale ultrasonic transducers. The transducers rely on optical and mechanical resonances, they can be used to generate and detect high frequency ultrasound in a sample. The mechanical and optical performance of the devices have been extensively modelled using both analytical techniques and finite element modelling. This allows the fine tuning of the design parameters to ensure optimised performance for the experimental configuration. The devices can be fabricated in a number of ways, we present one method for building these types of devices, a top down approach where plate structures are built up and patterned using standard photolithographic techniques. This method produces nanoscale devices in one dimension only (the others being a few microns) but produces excellent devices for testing in situ and for comparison to the models as they are easy to handle and measure. Approaches for reducing the other dimensions to the nanoscale will also be considered.

Multichannel, time-resolved picosecond laser ultrasound imaging and spectroscopy with custom complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor detector

This paper presents a multichannel, time-resolved picosecond laser ultrasound system that uses a custom complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor linear array detector. This novel sensor allows parallel phase-sensitive detection of very low contrast modulated signals with performance in each channel comparable to that of a discrete photodiode and a lock-in amplifier. Application of the instrument is demonstrated by parallelizing spatial measurements to produce two-dimensional thickness maps on a layered sample, and spectroscopic parallelization is demonstrated by presenting the measured Brillouin oscillations from a gallium arsenide wafer. This paper demonstrates the significant advantages of our approach to pump probe systems, especially picosecond ultrasonics.

Thin-film optoacoustic transducers for subcellular Brillouin oscillation imaging of individual biological cells

At low frequencies ultrasound is a valuable tool to mechanically characterize and image biological tissues. There is much interest in using high-frequency ultrasound to investigate single cells. Mechanical characterization of vegetal and biological cells by measurement of Brillouin oscillations has been demonstrated using ultrasound in the GHz range. This paper presents a method to extend this technique from the previously reported single-point measurements and line scans into a high-resolution acoustic imaging tool. Our technique uses a three-layered metal-dielectric-metal film as a transducer to launch acoustic waves into the cell we want to study. The design of this transducer and measuring system is optimized to overcome the vulnerability of a cell to the exposure of laser light and heat without sacrificing the signal-to-noise ratio. The transducer substrate shields the cell from the laser radiation, efficiently generates acoustic waves, facilitates optical detection in transmission, and aids with heat dissipation away from the cell. This paper discusses the design of the transducers and instrumentation and presents Brillouin frequency images on phantom, fixed, and living cells.

Parallel detection of low modulation depth signals: application to picosecond ultrasonics

We demonstrate parallel detection of laser ultrasonic signals above 50 GHz, where the signals are encoded as small modulations on a large dc background signal. The measurement problem addressed here is generic for many situations, particularly pump/probe experiments, and this paper discusses the problems of moving from single point to parallel detection and practical solutions. This is achieved with a commercial detector array, custom interface electronics and a carefully selected phase stepping algorithm. The parallel detection of Brillouin oscillations illustrates the very low modulation depths that can be measured with this technique. Noise performance and projected improvements for future custom detectors are also considered.

High resolution 3D imaging of living cells with sub-optical wavelength phonons

Label-free imaging of living cells below the optical diffraction limit poses great challenges for optical microscopy. Biologically relevant structural information remains below the Rayleigh limit and beyond the reach of conventional microscopes. Super-resolution techniques are typically based on the non-linear and stochastic response of fluorescent labels which can be toxic and interfere with cell function. In this paper we present, for the first time, imaging of live cells using sub-optical wavelength phonons. The axial imaging resolution of our system is determined by the acoustic wavelength (λau2009=u2009λprobe/2n) and not on the NA of the optics allowing sub-optical wavelength acoustic sectioning of samples using the time of flight. The transverse resolution is currently limited to the optical spot size. The contrast mechanism is significantly determined by the mechanical properties of the cells and requires no additional contrast agent, stain or label to image the cell structure. The ability to breach the optical diffraction limit to image living cells acoustically promises to bring a new suite of imaging technologies to bear in answering exigent questions in cell biology and biomedicine.

Highly parallel CMOS lock-in optical sensor array for hyperspectral recording in scanned imaging systems

Many optical measurements that are subject to high levels of background illumination rely on phase sensitive lock-in detection to extract the useful signal. If modulation is applied to the portion of the signal that contains information, lockin detection can perform very narrowband (and hence low noise) detection at frequencies well away from noise sources such as 1/f and instrumental drift. Lock-in detection is therefore used in many optical imaging and measurement techniques, including optical coherence tomography, heterodyne interferometry, optoacoustic tomography and a range of pump-probe techniques. Phase sensitive imaging is generally performed sequentially with a single photodetector and a lock-in amplifier. However, this approach severely limits the rate of multi-dimensional image acquisition. We present a novel linear array chip that can perform phase sensitive, shot-noise limited optical detection in up to 256 parallel channels. This has been achieved by employing four independent wells in each pixel, and massively enhancing the intrinsic well depth to suppress the effect of optical shot noise. Thus the array can reduce the number of dimensions that need to be sequentially scanned and greatly speed up acquisition. Results demonstrating spatial and spectral parallelism in pump-probe experiments are presented where the a.c. amplitude to background ratio approaches 1 part in one million.

Enhanced sensing and conversion of ultrasonic Rayleigh waves by elastic metasurfaces

Recent years have heralded the introduction of metasurfaces that advantageously combine the vision of sub-wavelength wave manipulation, with the design, fabrication and size advantages associated with surface excitation. An important topic within metasurfaces is the tailored rainbow trapping and selective spatial frequency separation of electromagnetic and acoustic waves using graded metasurfaces. This frequency dependent trapping and spatial frequency segregation has implications for energy concentrators and associated energy harvesting, sensing and wave filtering techniques. Different demonstrations of acoustic and electromagnetic rainbow devices have been performed, however not for deep elastic substrates that support both shear and compressional waves, together with surface Rayleigh waves; these allow not only for Rayleigh wave rainbow effects to exist but also for mode conversion from surface into shear waves. Here we demonstrate experimentally not only elastic Rayleigh wave rainbow trapping, by taking advantage of a stop-band for surface waves, but also selective mode conversion of surface Rayleigh waves to shear waves. These experiments performed at ultrasonic frequencies, in the range of 400–600u2009kHz, are complemented by time domain numerical simulations. The metasurfaces we design are not limited to guided ultrasonic waves and are a general phenomenon in elastic waves that can be translated across scales.

Optically excited nanoscale ultrasonic transducers

In order to work at higher ultrasonic frequencies, for instance, to increase the resolution, it is necessary to fabricate smaller and higher frequency transducers. This paper presents an ultrasonic transducer capable of being made at a very small size and operated at GHz frequencies. The transducers are activated and read optically using pulsed lasers and without physical contact between the instrumentation and the transducer. This removes some of the practical impediments of traditional piezoelectric architectures (such as wiring) and allows the devices to be placed immediately on or within samples, reducing the significant effect of attenuation which is very strong at frequencies above 1u2009GHz. The transducers presented in this paper exploit simultaneous optical and mechanical resonances to couple the optical input into ultrasonic waves and vice versa. This paper discusses the mechanical and optical design of the devices at a modest scale (a few μm) and explores the scaling of the transducers toward the sub-micron scale. Results are presented that show how the transducers response changes depending on its local environment and how the resonant frequency shifts when the transducer is loaded by a printed protein sample.