Surface-acoustic wave generation by thermoelasticity

Non-destructive testing of materials and components by surface-acoustic waves (SAW) is an important and well-known technique. In certain cases it is desirable to use a non-contact technique for generation and detection of SAW. For generation such a non-contact technique is the pulsed thermoelastic source using laser pulses. This has been demonstrated previously, however, no systematic studies have been performed on the conditions required for maximal efficiency or lowest "insertion loss" for SAW. In this paper we report on this question.