Dual-beam interferometer for the accurate determination of surface-wave velocity.

A novel dual-beam interferometer has been designed and constructed that enables two beams from a He-Ne laser to probe remotely the surface of a material. The separation of the two He-Ne beams is adjustable in the 15-to- 40-mm range with a spatial resolution of 2 microm. Surface-acoustic-wave measurements have been performed with two different probe separations so that the travel time for the surface waves over a known distance can be determined accurately. With the aid of autocorrelation algorithms, the Rayleigh pulse velocity on 7075-T651 aluminum has been measured to be 2888 +/- 4 m/s. The current precision of the system is limited mainly by the 10-ns sampling rate of the digital oscilloscope used. Rayleigh pulse interactions with a surface-breaking slot, machined to a nominal depth of 0.5 mm, have also been examined and the depth estimated ultrasonically to be 0.49 +/- 0.02 mm. The system may also provide a technique for direct quantitative studies of surface-wave attenuation.