A new surface acoustic wave imaging technique

Abstract

A new type of imaging technique is presented which incorporates focussed surface acoustic waves. Surface acoustic waves are generated on the surface to be imaged by use of conical wavefronts. The conical wavefronts are obtained through the reflection of planar wavefronts from a parabolic cylindrical mirror. An imaging system is built which uses focussed surface acoustic waves in a mechanical scanning arrangement controlled by a computer. The resulting images show subsurface features with diffraction limited resolution.