Elastic interface acoustic waves in twinned crystals (Q1434688)

The author shows that, when boundary conditions take the symmetries of the problem into consideration, then the interface wave is linearly polarized at the interface, either longitudinally or transversally. Once these effective boundary conditions are established, two corresponding secular equations are derived explicitly as cubics in the squared wave speed. The results are illustrated graphically for gallium arsenide and for silicon. For these materials, it turns out that one of the secular equations corresponds to a non-physical supersonic leaky interface wave, and that the other corresponds to a subsonic interface acoustic wave having the characteristics of a Stonely wave.