Calibration of high-frequency hydrophone up to 40 MHz by heterodyne interferometer

• A heterodyne interferometric technique for high-frequency calibration of hydrophone is presented.
• The pellicle is mounted at the surface of water to avoid acousto-optical interaction.
• Digital phase demodulation can effectively address the drawbacks of analog phase detection.
• The frequency range for calibration is extended to 40 MHz by heterodyne interferometer.
• The uncertainties in hydrophone calibration by heterodyne techniques are systematically analyzed.

A calibration technique for high-frequency hydrophone utilizing a heterodyne interferometer is presented in this article. The calibration system is mainly composed of optical and signal processing modules. In the displacement measurement, a pellicle is mounted at the surface of water to avoid acousto-optical interaction. The phase modulated carrier signal is digitized and transferred to the computer, then processed by digital phase demodulation. A phase unwrapping algorithm is employed to remove ambiguity of the arctangent function and has proven effective in large displacement measurements. Pellicle displacement and voltage output of the hydrophone in focused ultrasonic field are processed by DFT to determine the amplitudes of the fundamental and harmonic components. Experiments show that the heterodyne technique can provide hydrophone calibration up to 40 MHz, with a slightly smaller sensitivity compared with the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) calibration results for most frequency ranges. Since the heterodyne technique is independent on assumptions about the geometry of the ultrasonic field and the performance of the transducer, it can be easily extended to high frequency and high power ultrasound measurement applications.