Application of Brillouin scattering to the local anisotropy and birefringence measurements of thin layers

Brillouin scattering is an efficient nondestructive and noncontact measurement method to obtain the wave properties of thin layers at hypersonic frequencies. The reflection induced ThetaA (RIThetaA) scattering geometry enables the simultaneous measurement of the phonons, which propagate in each direction of wave vectors of q(Theta A) (propagation in the film plane) and q(180) (back scattering). Using this scattering geometry, we could observe the refractive indices and birefringence of the piezoelectric poly-vinylidene fluoride (PVDF) film as a function of temperature. By introducing the microscopic technique, the elastic anisotropy and refractive index measurements in the minute area of polycrystalline ZnO films were also performed.