Dispersion of an acoustic pulse passing through a large-grained polycrystalline film

Propagation of a short acoustic pulse through a polycrystalline film comprised of large randomly oriented elastically anisotropic grains is analyzed theoretically. For average grain size much larger than the film thickness, a short acoustic pulse launched normally into the film will traverse each grain in a time determined by the acoustic slowness in the direction normal to the film, which will depend on the local grain orientation. A typical measurement averages over a large number of grains resulting in the broadening of the composite output pulse. The resulting pulse shape is characterized by distinct features related to stationary values of the directionally dependent acoustic slowness of the crystalline material. Maxima and minima in the slowness yield discontinuities in the pulse shape, while saddle points yield logarithmic singularities. For cubic and hexagonal crystals, power law singularities result from cones of directions in which the slowness is a maximum or minimum. Numerical results, taking into account Gaussian broadening of the input pulse, are presented for thin film materials commonly encountered in picosecond ultrasonic experiments, such as copper, gold, and aluminum.