David Dowling, associate professor of mechanical engineering at the university, and student Serdar Yonak, are the co-inventors of this new technology. Their work was sponsored by the Ford Motor Co. in Detroit, and the automaker is now developing production equipment for such work as finding leaks in automotive air conditioners. (Yonak is now an employee of Ford.)
The technology makes use of photoacoustics, which is the excitation of acoustic waves by the momentary addition of heat from a light source.