Simulation of Excitation and Propagation of Pico-Second Ultrasound

This paper presents an analytic and numerical simulation of the generation and propagation of pico-second ultrasound with nano-scale wavelength, enabling the production of bulk waves in thin films. An analytic model of laser-matter interaction and elasto-dynamic wave propagation is introduced to calculate the elastic strain pulse in microstructures. The model includes the laser-pulse absorption on the material surface, heat transfer from a photon to the elastic energy of a phonon, and acoustic wave propagation to formulate the governing equations of ultra-short ultrasound. The excitation and propagation of acoustic pulses produced by ultra-short laser pulses are numerically simulated for an aluminum substrate using the finite-difference method and compared with the analytical solution. Furthermore, Fourier analysis was performed to investigate the frequency spectrum of the simulated elastic wave pulse. It is concluded that a pico-second bulk wave with a very high frequency of up to hundreds of gigahertz is successfully generated in metals using a 100-fs laser pulse and that it can be propagated in the direction of thickness for thickness less than 100 nm.