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...

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Main Authors: Smith, Richard J., Cota, Fernando Perez, Marques, Leonel, Chen, Xuesheng, Arca, Ahmet, Webb, Kevin, Aylott, Jonathan W., Somekh, Michael G., Clark, Matt
Format: Article
Published: Acoustical Society of America 2015
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/28218/
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author Smith, Richard J.
Cota, Fernando Perez
Marques, Leonel
Chen, Xuesheng
Arca, Ahmet
Webb, Kevin
Aylott, Jonathan W.
Somekh, Michael G.
Clark, Matt
author_facet Smith, Richard J.
Cota, Fernando Perez
Marques, Leonel
Chen, Xuesheng
Arca, Ahmet
Webb, Kevin
Aylott, Jonathan W.
Somekh, Michael G.
Clark, Matt
author_sort Smith, Richard J.
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description 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 1 GHz. 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 lm) 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.
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institution University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus
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publishDate 2015
publisher Acoustical Society of America
recordtype eprints
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spelling nottingham-282182020-05-04T17:00:22Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/28218/ Optically excited nanoscale ultrasonic transducers Smith, Richard J. Cota, Fernando Perez Marques, Leonel Chen, Xuesheng Arca, Ahmet Webb, Kevin Aylott, Jonathan W. Somekh, Michael G. Clark, Matt 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 1 GHz. 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 lm) 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. Acoustical Society of America 2015-01-23 Article PeerReviewed Smith, Richard J., Cota, Fernando Perez, Marques, Leonel, Chen, Xuesheng, Arca, Ahmet, Webb, Kevin, Aylott, Jonathan W., Somekh, Michael G. and Clark, Matt (2015) Optically excited nanoscale ultrasonic transducers. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 137 (1). pp. 219-227. ISSN 00001-4966 http://scitation.aip.org/content/asa/journal/jasa/137/1/10.1121/1.4904487?aemail=author doi:10.1121/1.4904487 doi:10.1121/1.4904487
spellingShingle Smith, Richard J.
Cota, Fernando Perez
Marques, Leonel
Chen, Xuesheng
Arca, Ahmet
Webb, Kevin
Aylott, Jonathan W.
Somekh, Michael G.
Clark, Matt
Optically excited nanoscale ultrasonic transducers
title Optically excited nanoscale ultrasonic transducers
title_full Optically excited nanoscale ultrasonic transducers
title_fullStr Optically excited nanoscale ultrasonic transducers
title_full_unstemmed Optically excited nanoscale ultrasonic transducers
title_short Optically excited nanoscale ultrasonic transducers
title_sort optically excited nanoscale ultrasonic transducers
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/28218/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/28218/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/28218/