Abstract
A two-dimensional imaging of a crack by nonlinear frequency-mixing photo-acoustic method is reported. The imaging contrast is due to nonlinear photo-thermo-acoustic processes taking place in case of simultaneous excitation by lasers of thermo-elastic and acoustic waves in the vicinity of the cracks. The images are obtained by scanning of two co-focused laser beams in region of crack location. The first cw laser beam, modulated in intensity at low frequency fL, generates a thermo-elastic wave, which is able to strongly periodically modulate the local crack rigidity up to complete closing/opening of the crack. The second cw laser beam, intensity modulated at much higher frequency fH, generates an acoustic wave incident on the breathing crack. The crack rigidity is also influenced by the stationary non-modulated inhomogeneous thermal stresses caused by the stationary heating of the sample by both lasers. The main contribution to imaging contrast comes from the strong dependence of the reflectivity of acoustic waves on the crack rigidity. The modulation of crack rigidity by thermo-elastic wave leads to the parametric modulation of the reflected acoustic waves and the generation in the spectrum of the acoustic field of the side lobes, which are separated from fH by the integer number of fL. Scan images of a crack with an amplitude dynamics up to 40 dB and a spatial resolution better than 100 μm, are obtained through the mapping of nonlinear side lobe amplitudes. The observed dependences of the images on the power of the lasers are discussed and the physical explanation of the appearance of crack phantom images at high level of optical excitation is proposed. For comparison and elucidation of spatial resolution issues related to this imaging method, the one-dimensional images, obtained with one laser beam focus position fixed and the second beam focus position scanning, are also presented and discussed.
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