This is an overview of the use of ultrasonic methods to study properties of both magnetic materials and non-magnetic metals. Much of the work in this area was done in the former Soviet Union and is not widely known in the West. The authors discuss not only the experimental techniques for using polarization effects with ultrasonic measurements, but also the theoretical basis for interpreting the data. Such experiments yield information not only about the vibrational spectra of the material over a wide range of frequencies, but also about electromagnetic properties. The book should interest...

This book had its conception when Dr. Gudkov visited me in Austin in the Fall of 1995 and urged me to join him in writing a review of the field of magnetoacoustic polarization phenomena. I protested that, although my students and I had done some early work on this topic, most of the later work was done by researchers at the Institute for Metal Physics and by other investigators in the former Soviet Union. He eventually persuaded me that my initial contribution and general experience with magnetoacoustic phenomena qualified me to serve as a co-author. When I considered the fact that the...