Eddy current enhancement for EMATs

When an electromagnetic acoustic transducer (EMAT) is used to generate ultrasound in an electrically conducting sample, eddy currents are generated in the sample's skin depth as the first stage in transduction. The resultant acoustic wave amplitude is proportional to the amplitude of this eddy current, and so anything that we can do to increase the eddy current will lead to the generation of larger amplitude ultrasonic waves. In eddy current testing, wire coils are often wound onto a ferrite core to increase the generated eddy current, with the effect that inductance of the coil increases greatly. When we are dealing with an EMAT, any increase in the coil inductance is usually unacceptable as it leads to a reduction in the amplitude of a given frequency of eddy current from a limited voltage source. This is particularly relevant where current arises from capacitor discharge, as is typically used in EMAT driver current circuitry. We present a method for electromagnetic acoustic transduction where ferrite is used to increase eddy current amplitude, without significantly increasing coil inductance or changing the frequency content of the eddy current or the generated acoustic wave