PhD student Guido de Haan successfully defended his thesis ‘Enhanced Generation and Detection of Ultrafast Laser-Induced Acoustic Signals’ on January 28th at the University of Amsterdam. De Haan carried out his doctoral research in the Light-Matter Interaction group led by promotor Paul Planken.
In his thesis de Haan demonstrates techniques to increase the strength of the photo-acoustic signal used in the alignment of stacked wafers. Both enhanced detection and enhanced excitation using a surface plasmon polariton resonance has been shown. De Haan also demonstrates the ability to generate extremely high-frequency acoustic waves using thin metal layers. Furthermore, high-power laser-induced damage on nanostructured gold has been investigated to better understand the damage mechanism, which is a limiting factor in the excitation of high amplitude acoustic waves.
