Picosecond ultrasonic investigations of phonons in 2D nano-scaled lattices

We time-resolved the acoustical response of lattices of aluminum nano-dots with a step of a few hundreds nanometers using tunable femtosecond laser pulses in a pump and probe scheme. We detected two kinds of modes, the first being the individual modes of the dots. The other modes are shown to be both dependent on the dot size and on the lattice and are thus interpreted as collective modes. Using several step sizes we show that we can plot the phonon dispersion relation. A simple analytical model very well reproduces the data from which we can describe completely the dependence of the lattice modes on the sample parameters.