Advanced ultrasonics platform

超声波是一种强大且广泛使用的研究工具，用于工程和医学许多领域的检查和诊断。它的价值在于它的成像和测量能力，并且因为它是非侵入性的，并且对被检查的结构或人无损伤。在本提案中，我们将在两个方向上扩展超声波的使用范围，使其远远超出目前的界限：首先，我们打算使其能够用于对超声波测量接近不透明的高度复杂的材料，其次，将超声波的操作范围向下扩展到纳米级，这样我们就可以将超声波成像和测量的力量应用于纳米机器和纳米材料，甚至是内部。单个活细胞。这两个方向紧密相连：我们要解决的许多先进材料从其微小尺度的结构中获得它们的整体宏观性质--一直到纳米尺度--我们希望研究的许多纳米尺度系统需要在大得多的结构的背景下在该尺度下进行测量--例如，研究活细胞的内部环境可能是有利的，而活细胞是体内更大的活器官的一部分。传统的超声技术对于复杂材料和纳米尺度都失败了。复杂材料返回的信号在所获取的数据和材料状态之间缺乏任何直接关系，这使得难以从实验观察中推断样品的状态。在纳米尺度上，一系列基本但根本的问题意味着不能使用通常的超声测量方法。从超高频超声波的基本和大量衰减，到如何将导线连接到纳米尺寸传感器的简单问题，我们将使用先进的理论和建模来设计测量系统，从这些复杂的材料中提取数据，并将其转化为与样品状态直接相关的信息。与此同时，我们将使用由高速激光器供电的创新无线超声换能器，以多GHz频率产生超声波，以探测纳米尺度的样品。

Ultrasonics is a powerful and widely used investigative tool which is used for examination and diagnosis across many areas of engineering and in medicine. It is valued because of its power to image and measure, and because it is non-invasive, and non-damaging to the structures, or people, under examination. In this proposal we will extend the use of ultrasonics far beyond its current boundaries, and in two directions: firstly we intend to enable its use in highly complex materials which are close to opaque to ultrasonic measurements, and secondly, to extend the scale at which ultrasonics operates downwards to the nanoscale so that we can bring the power of ultrasonic imaging and measurement to bear on nanomachines and nanomaterials and even inside single living cells. These two directions are strongly linked: many of the advanced materials we aim to tackle derive their overall macroscopic properties from their structure at a tiny scale - right down to the nanoscale - many of the nanoscale systems we wish to study require measurements at this scale within the context of much larger structures - for instance, it may be advantageous to study the internal environment of a living cell whilst it is part of a much larger living organ inside the body.The traditional ultrasonic techniques fail for both complex materials and at the nanoscale. Complex materials return signals that lack any direct relationship between the data acquired and the state of the material, and this makes it difficult to infer the state of the sample from the experimental observations. At the nanoscale a catalogue of basic but fundamental problems mean that the usual ways of performing ultrasonic measurements cannot be used. These range from the fundamental, and massive attenuation of very high frequency ultrasound, to the simple problem of how to attach a wire to a nanometre sized transducer.We will use advanced theory and modelling to design measurement systems to extract data from these complex materials and turn it into information directly related to the state of the sample. At the same time we will use innovative wireless ultrasonic transducers powered by high speed lasers to generate ultrasound at multiple GHz frequencies to probe the samples at the nanoscale.