Laser-based ultrasonic generation and detection of zero-group velocity Lamb waves in thin plates

C. Prada*, O. Balogun, T. W. Murray

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

133 Scopus citations

Abstract

A novel laser-based ultrasonic technique for the inspection of thin plates and membranes is presented, in which a modulated continuous-wave laser source is used to excite narrow bandwidth Lamb waves. The dominant feature in the acoustic spectrum is a sharp resonance peak that occurs at the minimum frequency of the first-order symmetric Lamb mode, where the group velocity of the Lamb wave goes to zero while the phase velocity remains finite. Experimental results with the laser source and receiver on epicenter demonstrate that the zero-group velocity resonance generated with a low-power modulated excitation source can be detected using a Michelson interferometer coupled to a lock-in amplifier. This resonance peak is sensitive to the thickness and mechanical properties of plates and may be suitable, for example, for the measurement and mapping of nanoscale thickness variations.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number194109
Pages (from-to)1-3
Number of pages3
JournalApplied Physics Letters
Volume87
Issue number19
DOIs
StatePublished - Nov 7 2005

Funding

This work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation through Grant Nos. ECS-0210752 and CMS-0448796.

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Physics and Astronomy (miscellaneous)

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