A Four-Quadrant PVDF Transducer for Surface Acoustic Wave Detection

• Main Authors: Zhi Chen, Yanning Li, Baoyin Jin, Fei Yang, Kun Chen, Dante J. Dorantes-Gonzalez, Zimo Lu, Xiaotang Hu
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2012-08-01
• Series: Sensors
• Subjects: laser-induced surface acoustic wave; piezoelectric transducer; PVDF transducer; four-quadrant arrangement
• Online Access: http://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/12/8/10500

In this paper, a polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) piezoelectric transducer was developed to detect laser-induced surface acoustic waves in a SiO<sub>2</sub>-thin film–Si-substrate structure. In order to solve the problems related to, firstly, the position of the probe, and secondly, the fact that signals at different points cannot be detected simultaneously during the detection process, a four-quadrant surface acoustic wave PVDF transducer was designed and constructed for the purpose of detecting surface acoustic waves excited by a pulse laser line source. The experimental results of the four-quadrant piezoelectric detection in comparison with the commercial nanoindentation technology were consistent, the relative error is 0.56%, and the system eliminates the piezoelectric surface wave detection direction deviation errors, improves the accuracy of the testing system by 1.30%, achieving the acquisition at the same time at different testing positions of the sample.