Picosecond laser ultrasonics for imaging of transparent polycrystalline materials compressed to megabar pressures

• Published in: Ultrasonics Vol. 69; no. 13; pp. 259 - 267
• Main Authors: Kuriakose, Maju, Raetz, Samuel, Chigarev, Nikolay, Nikitin, Sergey M., Bulou, Alain, Gasteau, Damien, Tournat, Vincent, Castagnede, Bernard, Zerr, Andreas, Gusev, Vitalyi E.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Netherlands Elsevier B.V 01-07-2016; Elsevier
• Subjects: 3D imaging; Acoustics; Crystallites; Diamond anvil cells; Engineering Sciences; High pressures; Imaging; Inhomogeneities; Laser ultrasonics; Lasers; Mechanics; Nanostructure; Physics; Picosecond ultrasonic interferometry; Repetition; Texturing; Time-domain Brillouin scattering; Time-domain Brillouin scattering; 3D imaging; High pressures; Laser ultrasonics; Picosecond ultrasonic interferometry; time-domain Brillouin scattering; picosecond ultrasonic interferometry; high pressures; laser ultrasonics; diamond anvil cell
• ISSN: 0041-624X; 1874-9968
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ultras.2016.03.007

•Picosecond laser ultrasonics for 3D imaging of strongly compressed polycrystals.•Sub-μm inhomogeneities and texture in polycrystals compressed in a diamond anvil cell.•Different texture features in polycrystalline water ice and argon at high pressures.
Picosecond laser ultrasonics is an all-optical experimental technique based on ultrafast high repetition rate lasers applied for the generation and detection of nanometric in length coherent acoustic pulses. In optically transparent materials these pulses can be detected not only on their arrival at the sample surfaces but also all along their propagation path inside the sample providing opportunity for imaging of the sample material spatial inhomogeneities traversed by the acoustic pulse. Application of this imaging technique to polycrystalline elastically anisotropic transparent materials subject to high pressures in a diamond anvil cell reveals their significant texturing/structuring at the spatial scales exceeding dimensions of the individual crystallites.