Quantitative short-pulse acoustic microscopy and application to materials characterization

A new acoustic microscopy method was developed for providing near-surface e lastic property mapping of a material. This method has a number of advantag es over the traditional V(z) technique. First, it enables one to perform me asurements in an automated mode that only requires user intervention in the setup phase. This automated mode makes it feasible to obtain quantitative microscopy images of the elastic property over an area on the material bein g tested. Also, it only requires a conventional ultrasonic system operating in pulsed mode for collecting the data, rather than a specialized tone-bur st system, which is needed in the traditional quantitative scanning acousti c microscopy technique. Finally, unlike the traditional method, the new exp erimental process does not require calibration of the system's electronics or additional reference data taken under hard-to-duplicate identical condit ions from a material that does not exhibit surface acoustic waves.