We employ a surface plasmon technique to resolve the dynamics of femtosecond-laser-induced coherent acoustic phonons in noble metals. Clear acoustic oscillations are observed in our experiments. We further study the dependence of the initial phase of the oscillations on pump fluence, and we find that the initial phase decreases linearly with pump fluence. Our model calculations show that hot electrons instantaneously excited by femtosecond pulses contribute to the generation of coherent acoustic phonons in metals.

• Received 20 December 2006

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.75.184304