The photoacoustic effect at first-order phase transition

Abstract

Thermal properties are essentially involved in the acoustic response of a liquid or solid sample to the absorption of chopped light. Recently, the first experimental observation of the photoacoustic effect at first‐order phase transitions has been published. In the present work we calculate the temperature variation in the gas at the surface of a sample and determine its amplitude and phase angle. Therefore we solve the differential equation of conduction of heat for a medium exhibiting a temperature gradient superposed by a temperature oscillation due to absorption of light with sinusoidal varying intensity. In the medium there exist two regions of different thermodynamic phases separated by an interface at transition temperature. The latent heat for phase transition is taken into account via a boundary condition for the heat flow at the interface. We have assumed the optical‐absorption coefficient to be much larger than the thermal‐diffusion coefficient realized in strongly absorbing materials. The application of our calculation to measured data is discussed with respect to the technique used to detect the acoustic signal. With the model, we present here, the experimental results can be described fairly well.