An acoustical helicoidal wave transducer with applications

for the alignment of ultrasonic and underwater systems

Brian T. Hefnera) and Philip L. Marston
Department of Physics, Washington State University, Pullman, Washington 99164-2814

Received 25 May 1999; accepted for publication 30 August 1999

A simple four-panel transducer capable of producing a beam with a screw dislocation along its axis
was constructed and evaluated. A screw dislocation in a wavefront is characterized by a phase
dependence about the dislocation axis that varies as exp(im), where m is an integer and is the
angle about the axis. At the axis, the phase is indeterminate and as a result there is a corresponding
null in the pressure magnitude. The screw dislocation in the transducer beam is along the beam axis
and is found to exist in both the far- and near-fields of the transducer. This null then clearly indicates
the axis of the beam at all distances and has the potential to be used as an aid in the alignment of
objects in sonar experiments or other similar applications. The helicoidal wave is also shown to
possess axial angular momentum. A related transducer was summarized previously J. Acoust. Soc.
Am. 103, 2971 1998 and is also discussed here for the purposes of comparison. 1999
Acoustical Society of America. S0001-49669904812-2
PACS numbers: 43.35.Yb, 43.38.Hz HEB

INTRODUCTION important properties of a helicoidal wave. Previously, we

A dislocation in a wavefront is characterized by an in-
determinate phase at its core with a corresponding null in the
wave magnitude.1,2 For a monochromatic, continuous travel-
ing wave beam, this null typically forms a fixed curve in
space. In a screw dislocation, the phase about the core varies
as exp(im), where m is an integer, the sign of which
indicates the charge or handedness of the beam. For a beam
with m1, the planes of constant phase form a corkscrew or
helicoid running in the direction of propagation as shown in
Fig. 1. For higher values of m, the planes of constant phase
consist of m interleaved helicoids. In the following, a beam
with a screw dislocation at its center will be referred to as a
helicoidal wave.
Although the existence and properties of screw disloca-
tions in a wave field were first identified in the context of
acoustics, a majority of the subsequent research has been on
optical screw dislocations.3,4 Various researchers have noted
the similarities between the structure of screw dislocations
and vortices in fluids, leading them to describe screw dislo-
cations in light as optical vortices.5,6 Indeed, under certain
conditions optical vortices have been observed to interact
with one another in ways that are very similar to vortices in
fluids.7 It has also been shown8,9 that a helicoidal wave pos-
sesses angular momentum in its spatial distribution as op-
posed to circularly polarized light, which possesses angular
momentum by virtue of its polarization.10 This property of
the helicoidal wave has found application as a means to
transfer angular momentum from a light beam to very small
particles, allowing one to control the rotation of objects held
in an optical trap. This is sometimes referred to as an optical
spanner.11
This paper describes a simple transducer for use in water
that is capable of generating a beam which has many of the
a
Electronic mail: bhefner@mail.wsu.edu
presented a different type of transducer that could also gen-
erate a helicoidal beam and discussed several properties of
this wavefront.12,13 That transducer used a less versatile de-
sign than is presented here, as will be discussed in Sec. I.
The current design uses a four-panel configuration, each
panel of which is driven separately and with the appropriate
phase to generate a helicoidal beam. Details of its construc-
tion and operation are presented in Sec. I. This type of beam
may have several uses in acoustics, one of which is the pos-
sibility of using this beam for the purposes of alignment.
This axial null exists in the near-field of the transducer as
well as the far-field, and this yields a well-defined axis rela-
tive to the transducer face. This null may be used as a more
accurate means of aligning sonar targets or other equipment
than a typical Gaussian beam; this application is discussed in
Sec. II. The helicoidal wave also carries angular momentum
as was discussed previously and is shown here in Sec. II.
This property has been exploited in optics and may also find
similar application in acoustics.
I. HELICOIDAL BEAM TRANSDUCER
To generate a helicoidal beam, the phase of the output
needs to be a function of angle about the center of the trans-
ducer. Thus, to produce a beam with m1, the phase at the
transducer face needs to possess the phase dependence of the
radiation. There are several ways to produce this phase shift,
two of which will be discussed here. It is worth noting that to
generate the optical helicoidal beam, one typically starts with
a Gaussian beam, such as the output of a laser, and trans-
forms it using either a system of lenses8 or a grating4 to
produce the desired structure. These techniques could be em-
ployed in acoustics; however, they are not discussed here.
In the transducer presented previously,12,13 the trans-
ducer face was physically offset to induce the proper phase
in the output, as is shown in Fig. 2a. That transducer con-
sists of a ring of marine brass and an annular piece of PVDF,

3313 J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 106 (6), December 1999 0001-4966/99/106(6)/3313/4/$15.00 1999 Acoustical Society of America 3313

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FIG. 1. Planes of constant phase for a wavefront containing a screw dislo-
cation helicoidal wavefront. The direction of propagation is indicated by
the arrow which runs along the axis of the beam. The phase is indeterminate
along the axis and there is a corresponding null in the magnitude.
which was stretched across the face of the ring. To produce
the 2 phase shift about the axis of the beam, the ring and
PVDF were cut at one point, which allowed the ring and
transducer face to move like the coil of a spring. By offset-
ting one side of the cut, the height of the ring face, and hence
the PVDF, becomes a continuous function of angle. If the
offset width, d, at the cut is chosen such that it is equal to the
wavelength of the sound produced by the PVDF, the surface
height can then be described as z T /2 and the gener-
ated beam should have the required angular dependence of
exp(i). To vary the offset, a screw was threaded into a
portion of the ring and the offset could be varied between 0
and 10 mm, beyond which the ring would begin to bend out
of the required helical shape. This sets the lower limit for the
operating frequency of the transducer at approximately
150 kHz.
This transducer produced a beam having many of the
characteristics of a helicoidal beam; however, the design had
several important limitations. Once the user set the offset
distance for the operating frequency of interest, the trans-
ducer could only be used at that frequency. To change the
frequency, the transducer would have to be physically re-
moved from its position and the offset would have to be
manually reset. Also, because unbacked PVDF was used, the
transducer had a great deal of flexibility but it worked poorly
when used to receive sound. This transducer simultaneously
FIG. 2. Schematic of the transducers used to generate helicoidal wavefronts.
a In the ring transducer, the phase ramp required to produce the helicoidal
wave is introduced by the cut in the ring. When d, the height of the
surface is described as z T /2 , where is the wavelength of the beam
and is the angle about the beam axis. b A four-panel 31 piezocompos-
ite transducer was driven such that each panel was 90 out of phase with the
previous panel. This gives the required 360 change in phase around the axis
of the beam producing a helicoidal wavefront in the far-field.
3314 J. Acoust. Soc. Am., Vol. 106, No. 6, December 1999
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radiated in the forward and backward directions.
To overcome these difficulties, a second transducer was
built using a much simpler and more versatile design. This
transducer was constructed from a 44-in. 13 composite
piezoelectric panel constructed by Material Systems, Inc.
The panel is optimally designed to operate at 200 kHz but
can perform from several kHz to nearly 600 kHz. The panel
was etched such that there are four equal-area 22-in.
squares, each of which can be driven on a separate channel.
An acoustic backing was attached to one side of the panel to
minimize radiation in the backward direction and the entire
system was encased in polyurethane. To produce the helicoi-
dal wave, each section was driven with a tone burst and the
phase was chosen such that each quadrant was driven 90 out
of phase from the previous quadrant as shown in Fig. 2b.
The phasing was then 0, 90, 180, and 270, instead of the
continuous phase ramp as in the previous design. In the far-
field of this transducer, this should produce an approximately
helicoidal wavefront.
The performance of the transducer was assessed in a
redwood tank of 8 ft diameter and 8 ft depth. The transducer
was placed 4 ft below the surface and 2 ft from the side of
the tank. The transducer panels were driven at 60 kHz with
50-cycle tone bursts. An X Y positioning system was used
to scan a plane perpendicular to the axis of the transducer
and 86 cm from the transducers face. A hydrophone, at-
tached to the scanning system, recorded the phase and mag-
nitude of the acoustic field at 1-cm increments, the results of
which are displayed in Figs. 3a and 4. Although the beam
does not possess cylindrical symmetry, it does possess the
required screw dislocation at its center. Close to the beam
axis, the phase becomes helical in nature and at the axis it
becomes indeterminate. This produces the desired near-null
in the magnitude of the beam along the axis. To demonstrate
that this null exists along the axis, even into the near-field of
the beam, the data in Figs. 3a and 4 were numerically back-
propagated using acoustic holography techniques.14 Figure
3b shows the beam at 43 cm, half the distance to the trans-
ducer, and as expected the null along the axis is still present.
Although the beam may become complicated as the propa-
gation distance is decreased, the null will still be present, as
is discussed in more detail below. It is interesting to note that
the screw dislocation at the center is not the only dislocation
present in the beam. There are also four prominent edge
dislocations,1 as can be seen in the phase distributions. At the
cores of these dislocations, the phase becomes indeterminate
as well and there are four corresponding nulls in the magni-
tude. Unlike the dislocation along the beam axis, these dis-
locations are not fixed and depend on the distance from the
transducer face.
With this design, the frequency of the output can be
changed as well as the helicity of the beam without disrupt-
ing the alignment of the transducer. Also, the transducer can
be switched from operating with m1 to m0 where there
is no dislocation present in the beam. Unlike the previous
design, where it was possible to set dm, this transducer
cannot operate with m1, although this design could be gen-
eralized to a larger number of panels or sections to produce
this type of beam. The piezocomposite material also works
B. T. Hefner and P. L. Marston: Acoustical helicoidal transducer 3314
FIG. 3. Output of the panel transducer operating at 60 kHz. a The normalized magnitude was measured in a plane perpendicular to the beams axis at a
distance of 86 cm from the transducer. The output is displayed on a decibel scale measured relative to the maximum response of the receiver. b The
magnitude and phase information was numerically backpropagated to 43 cm to confirm the existence of the axial null within the Rayleigh distance of the
transducer, R54.8 cm.

very well for receiving as well as transmission. This particu- presented in Fig. 3 was numerically backpropagated as in
lar transducer has been used for this type of application with Fig. 3b to track the existence of the null. For this scan, the
all of the panels connected; however, it has not been used to transducer was operated at 100 kHz and the sample plane
send and receive with each panel on a separate channel. was 95 cm from the transducer face. A cross section of these
There are several applications, such as scattering, for which backpropagation results corresponding to the x z plane is
this would be a very useful configuration. From symmetry given in Fig. 5. For the transducer operating at this fre-
considerations, specular reflections of an m1 beam from quency, the Rayleigh distance is taken to be R(1/2)ka 2
axisymmetric objects may be suppressed or enhanced using 54.8 cm, where a5.1 cm is the half-width of the trans-
the superposition of signals from appropriately phased ducer. As seen in Fig. 5, the null exists well within the Ray-
detectors.13 leigh distance of the transducer. Also, notice that the width
of the axial null decreases as one approaches the face of the
II. DISCUSSION transducer. By increasing the operating frequency, because
the null exists at all distances along the beams axis regard-
As mentioned above, this helicoidal beam may be a very less of the Rayleigh distance, the width of the null can be
useful tool for the alignment of sonar experiments or other
ultrasonic and underwater applications where objects need to
be placed along a common axis. The helicoidal beam pro-
duced a well-defined null along the axis of the beam which
exists in both the near- and far-fields. Its existence for the
particular transducer discussed above can be understood by
realizing that along the axis, the output of each panel inter-
feres destructively with the panel across from it. Regardless
of how complicated the overall structure of the beam may
become in the near-field, this interference should be main-
tained producing a continuous axial null. Using a hydro-
phone, the location of the axis could be found at the desired
distance from the transducer and then replaced by the target
to insure that the target is placed on the beam axis. A more
accurate method might be to use the transducer in a send and
receive mode and look at the specular reflection from the
target using the helicoidal beam. As noted previously, the
reflected signal would have the opposite helicity and if the
object is aligned with the axis, the received signal should be
suppressed. Furthermore, for axisymmetric targets the back- FIG. 4. The phase of the output measured in a plane perpendicular to the
beams axis at a distance of 86 cm from the transducer. At the center of the
scattered amplitude vanishes if measured on the axis.
beam the phase becomes indeterminate and comparison to Fig. 5 indicates
To further confirm the presence of a continuous null into that this corresponds to the location of the null in the magnitude of the wave
the near-field of the transducer, a scan similar to the one field.

3315 J. Acoust. Soc. Am., Vol. 106, No. 6, December 1999 B. T. Hefner and P. L. Marston: Acoustical helicoidal transducer 3315

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 Let (ip/ ) denote the complex velocity potential
and vRe be the fluid velocity where Re denotes
the real part. From Eq. 1, the azimuthal velocity is v
Re im /r . The average axial angular momentum den-
sity of the beam is ( )r v , where (c 2 )Re p is the
first-order change in density due to the acoustic wave and
denotes a time average. The angular momentum flux
L z and power P of the beam are

L z 2 c
0

r v r dr, 2

and

P2 0

Re p Re ik r dr, 3

where P is the integral of the local average acoustic intensity

FIG. 5. Cross section of the transducer beam operating at 100 kHz. This was
obtained by numerical backpropagation of the transducer output measured
95 cm from the transducer as discussed in Sec. II. The two lines at the top
of the graph indicate the location of the panel transducer.
made tighter for longer distances. This could increase the
accuracy in determining the axis location and hence the
alignment of objects along this axis.
To examine the nature of the angular momentum trans-
port in helicoidal waves, one can use a relatively simple
mathematical description of the beam which is often used in
optics for pure modes. The LaguerreGaussian LG beam is
a solution to the paraxial wave equation in cylindrical coor-
dinates and has many of the important properties of the heli-
coidal wave.8 With denoting the azimuthal angle the solu-
tions for the acoustic paraxial wave equation are
v z Re p . Inspection of Eq. 2 gives L z / Pm/ for
each value of m and n in Eq. 1. This ratio is the same as for
an electromagnetic beam.8 Consequently, absorption of
acoustic energy from beams with m0 will produce an axial
torque on an absorber. Wang et al.15,16 have investigated
torques associated with the absorption of appropriately
phased standing waves; however, the torques considered
here are associated with the absorption of traveling waves.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This research was supported by the Office of Naval Re-
search.
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2 1/2 985990 1992.

z 2 2 /2R i 4
e r/w e ikr
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p mn r, ,z A mn 1 e Commun. 103, 422428 1993.
zR 5
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6
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372 1999.
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12
B. T. Hefner and P. L. Marston, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 103, 2971 1998.
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3316 J. Acoust. Soc. Am., Vol. 106, No. 6, December 1999 B. T. Hefner and P. L. Marston: Acoustical helicoidal transducer 3316

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