Magnetoacoustic Measurements of the Fermi Surface of Aluminum

Abstract

The magnetoacoustic pulse-echo method has been applied to a study of the Fermi surface of aluminum, using 350-Mc/sec longitudinal sound waves. Single-crystal samples were studied with the sound propagation along the three principal crystallographic directions. A considerable variety of oscillation periods have been observed. The experimental results are presented and discussed with reference to several models. A redetermination of the low-temperature adiabatic elastic moduli of aluminum from ultrasonic pulse-echo velocity measurements has yielded values which, though differing from earlier published values, give a much better correlation of our data with the Fermi surface models. Some rough estimates are made of the electron relaxation times for the crystals used.