Abstract
SOUND waves have been excited in quartz from 20 kc/s to 3,000 Mc/s. Frequencies of greater than 20 Mc/s are usually excited either by placing a quartz rod in a re-entrant cavity and exciting the surface layer1, or by exciting 1–10 Mc/s quartz plates at high odd harmonics2. Both these methods suffer from the fact that the acoustic power produced is only of the order of mW/cm2. A distinct improvement in power level is obtained if the quartz is excited at its fundamental frequency3. This frequency is, of course, dependent on the thickness of the quartz plate—the latter is equal to half the wave-length for this frequency in the quartz. Difficulties arise because for frequencies above 10 Mc/s the thickness of the quartz plate must be less than 0.3 mm. However, by conventional grinding techniques, using fine ‘Carborundum’ powders, thicknesses as low as 150µ can be achieved. To obtain thinner plates, of higher fundamental frequencies, is exceedingly difficult, and requires very expensive machinery. Quartz, because of its brittleness, is easily broken during grinding, especially because of the large particle size of even the smallest ‘Carborundum’ particles (3F graded grit sizes average 13µ and may be as large as 25µ). Even after polishing the ground quartz, deep score marks are visible on its surface.
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References
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Connolly, C., thesis, Univ. Vermont (1963).
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CONNOLLY, C. Ultrasonically induced Etching of Quartz. Nature 210, 1251 (1966). https://doi.org/10.1038/2101251a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/2101251a0
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