A method for the frequency control in time-resolved two-dimensional gigahertz surface acoustic wave imaging

We describe an extension of the time-resolved two-dimensional gigahertz surface acoustic wave imaging based on the optical pump-probe technique with periodic light source at a fixed repetition frequency. Usually such imaging measurement may generate and detect acoustic waves with their frequencies only at or near the integer multiples of the repetition frequency. Here we propose a method which utilizes the amplitude modulation of the excitation pulse train to modify the generation frequency free from the mentioned limitation, and allows for the first time the discrimination of the resulted upper- and lower-side-band frequency components in the detection. The validity of the method is demonstrated in a simple measurement on an isotropic glass plate covered by a metal thin film to extract the dispersion curves of the surface acoustic waves