Picosecond acoustic measurement of anisotropic properties of thin films

Properties of thin metallic films have been studied extensively by means of laser-picosecond ultrasonics. Generation of longitudinal and shear waves via thermoelastic mechanism and large source has been only demonstrated for waves vectors along the normal to the interface. However, such measurements cannot provide complete information about elastic properties of films. As it has been already shown for nanosecond ultrasonics, the knowledge of group or phase velocities in several directions for sources with small lateral size allows determining the stiffness tensor coefficients of a sample. ne experimental set-up was prepared to obtain the thinnest size for the source to achieve acoustic diffraction. The identification of the stiffness tensor components, based on the inversion of the bulk waves phase velocities, is applied to signals simulated and experimentally recorded for a material with hexagonal properties. First estimation of stiffness tensor coefficients for thin metallic film 2.1 mu m has been performed.