Institute of Fundamental Technological Research

A new Acoustic Microscope operating at the frequency up to 200 MHz and allowing for visualization of the internal structures of materials was developed. The system was built basing on the commercially available components and the self-designed acoustic lenses. The dedicated software was developed to control the process of 3D RF-data acquisition, processing and presenting in 2D cross-sections or 3D surface rendering mode. This article describes the technical principles of the constructed microscope and presents the reconstructed images of the designed test-probe and of the integrated circuit.

Acoustic Microscopy, SAM, 3D imaging, rendering, subsurface imaging

Advances in modern technology increases requirements for nondestructive characterization of material and biological properties in the μm range. The acoustic microscope presented in this paper combines C-scan and B-scan modes. The data collected during single XY scan allow to present transversal and horizontal crosssections of the sample as well as real three-dimensional images of the sample interior. The system consist of several components: step motor driven mechanical scanner, transmitter/ receiver device, ADC 1 GHz board, ultrasonic heads, PC-class computer and image processing and visualization software. Image processing software is used for initial 3D image analysis of the whole image or its fragments, and for preparing it this way for vectorization. To achieve vectorization we used VTK (Visualization Tool Kit) library from Kitware Inc., which is the open source software, designed for 3D graphics and image processing. Finally iso-surface is constructed and presented as 3D scene in interactive GUI (Graphical User Interface).

3D visualization, microscope, ultrasound