8/9/14 Recent Advances in Adaptive Receivers For Laser-Generated Ultrasound

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Abstract
Introducti on
Two-Wave Mi xi ng
Photo-Emf Detecti on
References
NDT.net - June 2000, Vol. 5 No. 06
Recent Advances in Adaptive Receivers For Laser-Generated
Ultrasound
Marvin Klein
Bruno Pouet
G. David Bacher
Lasson Technologies
6059 Bristol Parkway
Culver City, CA 90230,USA
- International Symposium on NDT Contribution to
the Infrastructure Safety Systems, 1999 NOV 22-26
Torres,
published by UFSM, Santa Maria, RS, Brazil
Abstract
Laser ultrasonics is a promising new technique for
remote, noncontact ultrasonic inspection. In this technique, a pulsed laser is used to generate an ultrasonic
pulse in the sample under inspection and a cw laser interferometer is used to detect the small
displacements generated where the ultrasonic pulse reaches the surface.
Lasers are quite effective in generating ultrasound, but until recently, laser ultrasonic receivers were not as
sensitive as required. Most laser ultrasonic receivers use an interferometer for detection. Conventional
interferometers suffer from loss of performance because they can not process speckled beams from rough
surfaces. They also require exact path length matching for linear signal detection. In this paper, we will
describe a new family of compensated interferometers using photorefractive crystals as real-time
holograms or as adaptive photodetectors. These receivers require no path-length stabilization and can
process speckled beams with no loss in signal-to-noise. They can also compensate for dynamic wavefront
distortions due to mechanical vibrations or turbulence in the propagation path.
Keywords: laser-based ultrasound, homodyne, photo-emf, two-wave mixing
Introduction
Laser-based ultrasound (LBU) is a noncontact inspection technique with the potential for in-process
sensing, manufacturing quality control and in-service inspection (see Figure 1)[1]. Although the methods of
generation and detection are very different from contact ultrasonics, the ultrasonic wave interactions inside
the part are very similar. The normal complement of waves (compressional, shear, surface and plate) can
be generated, and familiar inspection geometries (pulse-echo, through-transmission and pitch-catch) can
be used. Particularly large wave amplitudes are observed when the generation laser is allowed to ablate a
thin layer of material from the incident surface.
LBU has a number of unique features:
1. Its noncontact nature avoids mechanical loading of the workpiece and allows inspection of parts
moving at high speeds (up to at least 20 m/s)
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2. Its remote standoff capability allows inspection of parts in adverse manufacturing conditions,
including high temperatures, vacuum or plasmas
3. The use of scanning mirrors and fiber optics allows reconfigurable probing
Fig 1: Schematic diagram of laser ultrasonic inspection system in pulse
echo mode.
of complex-shaped parts without conformal surface tracking and (4) the high bandwidth of laser generated
waves enhances spatial resolution and provides more reliable defect detection, compared with transducer-
based measurements.
In general, ultrasonic signals produced by ablation have larger amplitudes and higher bandwidths than
those produced by conventional contact transducers. However, interferometric receivers, while having
higher bandwidth, are generally less sensitive than contact transducers for detection of ultrasonic signals. In
recent years, there has been considerable interest in improving the performance of laser ultrasonic
receivers. In response, a new class of adaptive interferometers has been developed to detect the small
ultrasonic surface displacements encountered in typical measurement conditions. Unlike conventional
homodyne or heterodyne interferometers, these adaptive laser ultrasonic receivers allow the efficient
processing of speckled beams that are received from rough surfaces and/or from multimode fibers. In
addition, they can compensate for dynamic wavefront changes resulting from beam scanning, workpiece
motion or atmospheric turbulence.
Laser interferometers have been used for many years (1) to detect small-amplitude surface displacements
that are produced when an ultrasonic wave reaches the detected surface. As originally developed, passive
homodyne or heterodyne interferometers with coherent detection could not operate effectively with the
speckled input beams that result from interrogating a rough surface with a laser probe beam. In addition,
accurate path length stabilization (homodyne) or postprocessing electronics (heterodyne) were required
for effective operation. The later development of time-delay interferometers, such as the confocal Fabry-
Perot, has allowed the processing of light scattered from a rough surface with a large field of view[2]. The
confocal Fabry-Perot can respond very rapidly to changing input wavefronts and has high sensitivity, with
measured values approaching the shot noise limit. However, the confocal Fabry-Perot still requires
stabilization of the interferometer length to a fraction of an optical wavelength, thereby adding complexity
and cost to the receiver.
More recently, a number of laser ultrasonic receivers based on adaptive reference-beam interferometers
have been developed to process speckled beams with time-varying wavefronts resulting from mechanical
disturbances or workpiece motion. These adaptive reference-beam interferometers have several
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advantages over passive reference-beam interferometers such as the Michelson or Mach-Zehnder:
1. No path-length stabilization is required
2. The intrinsic device field-of-view is higher
3. Mechanical stability tolerances are greatly reduced
4. Low frequency wavefront disturbances resulting from turbulence and mechanical disturbances can
be compensated.
Two-Wave Mixing
Current receiver development efforts are focused on approaches based on two-wave mixing or on photo-
emf detection. In the two-wave mixing approach (see Figure 2), the photorefractive medium acts as an
adaptive beamsplitter, combining a distorted signal beam with a plane-wave reference beam and matching
their wavefronts for homodyne detection. To provide linear detection of a temporally phase-modulated
signal beam, the phases of the two combined beams must be biased in quadrature for optimum sensitivity.
In contrast with the confocal Fabry-Perot interferometer, no path-length stabilization is required to
maintain this condition.
Fig 2: Schematic diagram of a laser ultrasonic receiver based on two-wave mixing.
One feature of the two-wave mixing approach is that there is no material-related upper limit on the
ultrasonic signal bandwidth. The upper limit is determined only by the bandwidth of the conventional
photodetector. By contrast, the wavefront distortion compensation bandwidth is determined by the
response time of the photorefractive grating. The grating response time also determines the maximum scan
rate for scanning applications. For many industrial applications, a compensation bandwidth of at least 1
kHz is required. The requirement for a short response time favors the photorefractive semiconductors. In
recent experiments using bulk InP and CdTe[3] as well as photorefractive multiple quantum wells[4], such
bandwidths have been observed. For inspection applications in a static environment, slower, more efficient
materials such as BaTiO
3
may be used.
Photo-Emf Detection
The other approach under development at this time is based on a reference-beam interferometer with
photo-emf detection, as shown in Figure 3[5]. In this case, the photo-emf element performs the dual
function of laser-based ultrasonic detection as well as optical distortion compensation in a single
semiconductor crystal. As before, the speckled signal beam interferes with the reference beam in a
photorefractive material, producing a spatially modulated conductivity pattern, which leads to the
production of a spatially periodic space charge field via the normal carrier migration and trapping process.
The small phase modulation on the signal beam imparted by the surface motion causes a lateral vibration
of the periodic free carrier grating, which induces an ac current that is proportional to the modulation
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amplitude and to the total power. This current is only produced when the frequency of the ultrasonic phase
modulation is faster than the grating relaxation rate. When the modulation frequency is lower than the
grating relaxation rate, the space charge field grating can follow the motion of the fringes and no current is
produced. Thus, the grating relaxation rate is equivalent to the compensation bandwidth defined above
and the photo-emf receiver has the desirable property of reduced sensitivity for noise-related frequencies
below this bandwidth.
Fig 3: Schematic diagram of a laser ultrasonic receiver based on photo-emf
detection.
As mentioned above, the major advantage of the photo-emf approach is that it combines the separate
optical compensation and detection stages in the two-wave mixing approach into a single semiconductor
element, without the need for an optical readout beam or an electro-optical response. Since no transmitted
beams are required, a laser wavelength with a photon energy larger than the bandgap can be used. At
these wavelengths the large value of absorption coefficient provides a very fast grating relaxation rate for
modest levels of probe laser power. In the case of GaAs, this rapid relaxation rate allows compensation of
wavefront distortions at bandwidths exceeding 100 kHz, as well as measurements on samples moving at
speeds greater than 20 m/s[6]. The upper limit on the ultrasonic signal processing bandwidth is determined
by the recombination rate, which is ~80 MHz in conventional semi-insulating GaAs. In recent experiments,
we have also shown that photo-emf detectors with interdigitated electrodes can produce an improvement
of at least 10x in the responsivity of these devices.
References
1. C. B. Scruby and L. E. Drain, Laser Ultrasonics: Techniques and Applications, Adam Hilgar, Bristol,
1990.
2. J.-P. Monchalin and R. Heon, Mater. Eval. 44, 1231 (1986).
3. A. Blouin, P. Delaye, D. Drolet, L.-A. de Montmorillon, J.C. Launay, G. Roosen and J.-P. Monchalin,
"Optical detection of ultrasound using two-wave mixing in semiconductor photorefractive crystals and
comparison with the Fabry-Perot," in Nondestructive Characterization of Materials VIII, Ed. by R.E.
Green, Jr., Plenum Press, New York, 1998, pp. 13-20
4. I. Lahiri, L.J. Pyrak-Nolte, D.D. Nolte, M.R. Melloch, R.A. Kruger, G.D. Bacher and M.B. Klein,
"Laser-based ultrasound detection using photorefractive multiple quantum wells," Appl. Phys. Lett. 73, (8)
1041 (1998).
5. P.V. Mitchell, G.J. Dunning, S.W. McCahon, M.B. Klein, T.R. O'Meara and D.M. pepper,
"Compensated high-bandwidth laser ultrasonic detector based on photo-induced emf in GaAs," in Review
of Progress in Quantitative Nondestructive Evaluation, Ed. by D.O. Thompson and D.E. Chimenti,
Plenum Press, New York, 1996, Vol. 15, pp. 2149-2155.
6. B. Pouet, E. Lafond, B. Pufahl, D. Bacher, P. Brodeur and M. Klein, "On-machine characterization of
8/9/14 Recent Advances in Adaptive Receivers For Laser-Generated Ultrasound
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moving paper using a photo-emf laser ultrasonics method," to be published in Proc. SPIE, 3589 (1999).
7. D.D. Nolte, J.A. Coy, G.J. Dunning, D.M. Pepper, M.P. Chiao, G.D. Bacher and M.B. Klein, Opt. Lett.
24, 342-344 (1999).
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