Acousto-thermal birefringence of iron(III) chloride using ultrasound flexural standing wave

Abstract

Small, thin devices that can realize high-speed light modulation are important in the imaging and sensing technology fields. In this paper, a combination of iron(III) chloride and ultrasound was proposed to modulate the spatial distribution of the iron(III) chloride layer’s refractive index. An ultrasound cell containing an iron(III) chloride layer and two ultrasound transducers was fabricated to investigate the variations in the refractive index under ultrasonication. The maximum change in the material’s birefringence was observed at the center of the cell, indicating that thermal generation caused by the ultrasound vibration induced this phenomenon.