Faculty Bibliography

The aim of this paper is to compare two different methods for the calculation of the ultrasonic output power of underwater transducers: the radiation force balance, which is the standard method, and the laser heterodyne interferometry, which is rather used to depict displacement or velocity distributions of the acoustic field. Here it is shown that the latter can also be used to calculate the acoustic time-average power with an uncertainty of about 22%, the radiation force balance giving an uncertainty of 12% (with 95% confidence). The interferometry experiments performed with two transducers working at 2.25 MHz and 8.25 MHz showed that they produce different acoustic fields (respectively Gaussian and Lorentz-sigmoidal distributions). Taking into account the acoustic field profiles, the acoustic time-average power from interferometry was calculated. It was found very similar to the time-average power measured with the radiation force balance in the plane-wave assumption.

A B(1) field gradient-based method previously described for the detection of mechanical vibrations has been applied to detect oscillatory motions in condensed matter originated from acoustic waves. A ladder-shaped coil generating a quasi-constant RF-field gradient was associated with a motion-encoding NMR sequence consisting in a repetitive binomial 13;31; RF pulse train (stroboscopic acquisition). The NMR response of a gel phantom subject to acoustic wave excitation in the 20-200 Hz range was investigated. Results showed a linear relationship between the NMR signal and the wave amplitude and a spectroscopic selectivity of the NMR sequence with respect to the input acoustic frequency. Spin displacements as short as a few tens of nanometers were able to be detected with this method.