On diffraction of acoustic and electric waves in piezoelectric medium by an absorbent half-plane electrode

Diffraction of incident acoustic and incident electric waves in a transversally isotropic piezoelectric medium at the boundary of a half-plane absorbent electrode is systematically investigated using the quasi-hyperbolic approximation. The electrode is assumed to be very thin so that its thickness and stiffness can be neglected. By exact inversion, the explicit expressions for the scattering waves are obtained. A closed form solution is obtained by applying Laplace transformations and the Wiener–Hopf technique. By means of the Cagniard–de Hoop method a detailed investigation of the structure of the electro-acoustic wave is conducted. The mode conversion between electric and acoustic waves, the effect of electroacoustic head wave, the Bleustein–Gulyaev surface wave and the structure of the wave in terms of the type of the incident wave (acoustic or electric) and its angle of incidence are analyzed in detail. It is shown that in piezoelectric materials, absorbent electrodes are neither completely opaque nor completely transparent to electric and acoustic waves. The dynamic field intensity factors at the tip of the electrode are functions of the angle of incidence and time; they are derived explicitly and discussed through a detailed numerical analysis.