Electrostrictive and thermal excitation of hypersonic vibrations by nearly opposite picosecond YAG:Nd laser pulses

An investigation was made of the use of interfering laser beams to excite frequency-tunable hypersonic vibrations in liquid media by electrocaloric, electrostrictive, and thermal nonlinearity mechanisms. In some liquids the addition of dyes made it possible to go over continuously from electrostrictive excitation of hypersonic gratings to thermal excitation.