Acoustic measurement system for use in phase transition experiments

Abstract

An electronic system has been developed whereby the relative velocity and attenuation of an acoustic wave can be measured simply, dynamically, automatically, and simultaneously. The best application for this system is in certain phase transition experiments where acoustic quantities undergo large changes, i.e., the attenuation changes by several dB and the velocity by a factor of two or more. The unique feature of this system is that the output pulse signal is fed into gates that track the changing position of the signal with time. Attenuation is determined from the integral of the signal in one of the gates while velocity information is determined from the time positioning of one of the gate edges.