Sound wave techniques are experimental and analytical methods that generate, manipulate, and detect acoustic waves to probe, image, or modify materials and systems. In research, they encompass ultrasound imaging, acoustic microscopy, non-destructive evaluation via bulk and surface acoustic waves, and acoustic spectroscopy for characterizing elastic, viscoelastic, or porous media. These techniques exploit frequency-dependent propagation, reflection, refraction, scattering, attenuation, and mode conversion of longitudinal and shear waves. They are implemented using piezoelectric transducers or laser-based sources and detectors, and are used to measure mechanical properties, detect defects, monitor processes, and study wave–matter interactions across solid, liquid, and gaseous environments.
A new technology has been developed that enables cuffless noninvasive blood pressure monitoring by using ultrasonic to track real-time changes in vascular diameter—without the need for a traditional cuff. The technology ...
Bio & Medicine
Jan 8, 2026
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21
Using sound to get objects to float works well if a single particle is levitated, but it causes multiple particles to collapse into a clump in mid-air. Physicists at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) ...
General Physics
Dec 2, 2025
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85
Since the Industrial Revolution, scientists estimate that the ocean has become around 30% more acidic from the uptake of additional anthropogenic carbon dioxide. Ocean acidification has widespread effects, including loss ...
A common problem with oil wells is that they can run dry even when sound-based measurements say there's still oil there. A team from Penn State University used Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center's (PSC's) flagship Bridges-2 ...
Earth Sciences
Sep 8, 2025
2
31
The notion of a phased array was initially articulated by Nobel Prize recipient K. F. Braun. Phased arrays have subsequently evolved into a formidable mechanism for wave manipulation. This assertion holds particularly true ...
Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka researchers have hit the right note to cut down the time it takes to brew beer without altering its flavor. They have found playing audible sound (white noise) while making beer can reduce the fermentation ...
Cell & Microbiology
Aug 18, 2025
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64
Biomedical engineers at Duke University have developed a method to more precisely heat up gold nanoparticles to target and destroy cancerous tumors. Using imaging methods that combine light and sound to peer deeper into tissue, ...
Bio & Medicine
Aug 18, 2025
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5
Using new techniques, Yale researchers have demonstrated the ability to use lasers to cool quantized vibrations of sound within massive objects to their quantum ground state, the lowest energy allowable by quantum mechanics. ...
Optics & Photonics
Aug 15, 2025
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78
Researchers have created a microphone that listens with light instead of sound. Unlike traditional microphones, this visual microphone captures tiny vibrations on the surfaces of objects caused by sound waves and turns them ...
Optics & Photonics
Jul 31, 2025
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66
In a new study, researchers show, for the first time, that photoacoustic microscopy can image stents through skin, potentially offering a safer, easier way to monitor these life-saving devices. Each year, around 2 million ...
Optics & Photonics
Jul 26, 2025
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