WAVE REFLECTION IN PIEZOELECTRIC HALF-PLANE

Abstract

The assumption of quasi-static electric field in the problem of wave reflection in piezoelectric half-plane results in missing an independent electric wave mode at the piezoelectric boundary, which leads to oversimplified solutions of reflected waves in a strong piezoelectric medium if only elastic bulk wave boundary conditions are considered. The paper presents a novel solution to address the issue by using the inhomogeneous wave theory and introducing a virtual reflection wave mode in addition to the elastic bulk wave modes. The virtual wave is assumed to satisfy the Snell's law as well as the piezoelectric boundary condition and can be treated in the same way as the elastic bulk waves. The analysis results show that this virtual wave always propagates along the boundary for any incident angle and can be treated as a pseudo surface wave. The energy transmission analysis reveals that this surface wave transmits zero energy and does not violate the energy conservation between the incident and the reflected elastic bulk waves. In addition, the analysis also reveals an interesting result that the quasi-transverse, not the quasi-longitudinal, incident wave will be fully reflected and no quasi-longitudinal reflected wave will be generated if the incident angle is beyond a critical angle.