Microscale multiple scattering of coherent surface acoustic wave packets probed with gigahertz time-reversal acoustics

Phys Rev E Stat Nonlin Soft Matter Phys. 2006 Aug;74(2 Pt 2):026604. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevE.74.026604. Epub 2006 Aug 15.

Abstract

The multiple scattering of coherent surface acoustic wave packets in a microstructure is studied using an ultrafast optical technique. By recording a set of acoustic transfer functions, we show that it is possible to implement time-reversal acoustics and refocus the wave packets up to the GHz range, two orders of magnitude higher than usual. Many applications in time-reversal acoustics are thus transposable to correspondingly smaller structures, opening the way to efficient nondestructive characterization and manipulation of multiple scattering on the microscale.