Acoustic microscopy measurement of elastic constants and mass density

A method is presented to determine the elastic constants and the mass density of isotropic and anisotropic solids and anisotropic thin films. The velocity and attenuation of leaky surface acoustic waves (SAWs) have been obtained for specified propagation directions from V(z) curves measured by line-focus acoustic microscopy (LFAM). The experimentally obtained velocities have been compared to velocities obtained from a measurement model for the V(z) curve which simulates the experiment. Since the measured and simulated V(z) curves have the same systemic errors, the material constants are free of such errors. For an isotropic solid, Young's modulus E, the shear modulus G and the mass density /spl rho/ have been determined from the leaky Rayleigh wave velocity and attenuation, measured by LFAM, and a longitudinal wave velocity measured by a pulse-echo transit-time technique. For a cubic-crystalline solid, the ratios of the elastic constants to the mass density (c/sub 11///spl rho/, c/sub 12///spl rho/, c/sub 44///spl rho/) have been determined from the directional variation of measured SAW velocities, using a preliminary estimate of /spl rho/. The mass density /spl rho/ has subsequently been determined by additionally using the attenuation of leaky SAWs in crystal symmetry directions. For a cubic-crystalline thin film deposited on a substrate, the elastic constants and the mass density (c/sub 11/, c/sub 12/, c/sub 44/, /spl rho/) of the film have been determined from the directional variation of the measured SAW velocities, and a comparison of the corresponding attenuation coefficient with the measured attenuation coefficient has been used to verify the results.< >