A new ultrasonic interferometer for the determination of equation of state parameters of sub-millimeter single crystals

A new giga-Hertz ultrasonic interferometer has been developed, based on ultrasonic microscopy technology. The interferometer operates from 0.3 GHz to 1.5 GHz. The high frequency and associated small wavelengths together with the large bandwidth make it possible to measure travel times in samples with thicknesses of several microns and allow for unprecedented accuracy in bond corrections. An absolute accuracy of 1 part in 10⁵ in travel time measurements is achievable in single crystals (thickness of 200 microns) or glasses of interest to the earth sciences. The high precision travel time data, combining with sample length measurements using a laser interferometer built in our laboratory, yield very high precision ultrasonic velocities.The interferometer is intended for use in conjunction with a newly developed 4 GPa gas piston cylinder apparatus (Getting andSpetzler, 1993) for equation of state measurements under simultaneous pressure and temperature. A separate correction for the bond will be made for each datum at every point in temperature pressure space.