Optical probing of surface acoustic waves

Light diffraction by surface acoustic waves is used in studying the propagation characteristics of Rayleigh waves on y-cut z-oriented LiNbO3. In reflection, only the surface deformation contributes to the diffracted light. In transmission, the photoelastic effect, which is incident beam polarization dependent, must also be considered. Such optical probing has been used to study the Fresnel diffraction radiation pattern of an interdigital transducer, to measure beam steering effects related to transducer misalignment on an anisotropic substrate, and to measure reflection and transmission coefficients of an electrically loaded transducer. Attenuation measurements have been made over frequencies as high as 3.5 GHz. The power dependence of attenuation and harmonic generation is also examined.