Universiteit Utrecht   Faculteit Natuur- en Sterrenkunde

Transmission of coherent phonons through a metallic multilayer

D. J. Dieleman, A. F. M. Arts, and H. W. de Wijn
Faculty of Physics and Astronomy, and Debye Institute, Utrecht University, P.O. Box 80.000, 3508 TA Utrecht, The Netherlands

The transmission of a coherent beam of longitudinal acoustic phonons through a twelve-layer Ag-Au superlattice is measured at gigahertz frequencies. The acoustic wave is generated by laser-induced thermomodulation, and detected with Brillouin scattering in the The transmission of a coherent beam of longitudinal acoustic phonons through a twelve-layer Ag-Au superlattice is measured at gigahertz frequencies. The acoustic wave is generated by laser-induced thermomodulation, and detected with Brillouin scattering in the PbMoO4 single-crystalline substrate after passage through the superlattice. The transmission is found to drop to order one percent in well defined stop bands. Calculations based on wave equations reproduce the stop bands as well as the transmission at intermediate frequencies.