Impact of Mack Breazeale on the ultrasonic studies of interfaces

• Published in: The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 2010-03, Vol.127 (3_Supplement), p.1806-1806
• Main Author: Adler, Laszlo
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0001-4966; 1520-8524
• DOI: 10.1121/1.3384089

Over the last 50 years, Mack Breazeale made very significant contributions to Physical Acoustics. He was a great influence to his students as well as to researchers all around the world who carried on, continued, and expanded the work which was initiated by him. His work is well known on nonlinear studies of liquids and solids, acousto-optics, ultrasonic interaction at liquid-solid interfaces at the Rayleigh angle generating leaky waves, and many others. Nonlinear acoustic techniques improved material characterization of complex materials and structures significantly. The generation and detection of leaky waves opened up several applications in nondestructive evaluation. In this presentation, several of these techniques which were recently developed will be discussed. One of this is the optical detection of leaky waves at an air-solid interface which can be used to evaluate elastic properties of solids as well as surface imperfections. A nonlinear ultrasonic method to study interfaces between solid layers will be also presented. Mack Breazele leaves a legacy of knowledge, wisdom, and kindness and will always be remembered by us.