Ferroelastic relaxation at 20 GHz evidenced by large frequency range picosecond acoustics

We present a method to perform elastic measurements on a thin-film as a function of frequency between a few GHz and a few hundred GHz. The technique is mainly based on Picosecond Acoustics (PA), which is an ultrafast optical technique that realizes pulse-echo measurements in the hypersonic range. Here, we combine gold layers serving as transducers and several opto-acoustic detection mechanisms to extend the PA technique to the lowest accessible frequencies (a few GHz) up to hundreds of GHz. We can therefore use the same technique on the same material to explore its elastic properties at a certain frequency over a very large frequency range. We have then applied this technique to explore the elastic properties of a lead zirconate titanate thin film from 3 to 80 GHz. We report a 9% increase in the longitudinal sound velocity above 20 GHz, which corresponds to a 19% increase in the C-33 elastic modulus. We interpret such an observation as a direct evidence of ferroelastic domain wall relaxation. Published by AIP Publishing.