Determination of mechanical properties of layered materials with vector-contrast scanning acoustic microscopy by polar diagram image representation

Abstract

Microscopic objects including living cells on a planar substrate are investigated in bio-medical applications of scanning acoustic microscopy. Beside of the observation of lateral structures, the determination of sample properties such as density, sound velocity, and attenuation is desired, from which elastic properties can be derived. This can be achieved with the aid of the acoustic phase and magnitude contrast represented in a polar plot. For homogeneous and sufficiently planar objects the contrast in magnitude and phase is a function of the properties of the substrate and the coupling fluid, which both can easily be determined, and of the mechanical properties of the sample under observation. For observation in reflection and variable thickness of the sample the signal will depend on the actual thickness. This signature of the object can be fitted based on a conventional ray model for the sound propagating in the coupling medium and the sample. The model includes also the refraction and reflection at all interfaces between transducer, lens material, coupling fluid, object, and substrate. The method is demonstrated for a chitosan film deposited on a glass substrate. The scheme presented here is capable to reach a resolution of about and even below 1% for relevant quantities in applications involving imaging at 1.2 GHz in aqueous coupling fluids.