  The control of optically driven high-frequency strain waves in nanostructured
systems is an essential ingredient for the further development of
nanophononics. However, broadly applicable experimental means to quantitatively
map such structural distortion on their intrinsic ultrafast time and nanometer
length scales are still lacking. Here, we introduce ultrafast convergent beam
electron diffraction (U-CBED) with a nanoscale probe beam for the quantitative
retrieval of the time-dependent local distortion tensor. We demonstrate its
capabilities by investigating the ultrafast acoustic deformations close to the
edge of a single-crystalline graphite membrane. Tracking the structural
distortion with a 28-nm/700-fs spatio-temporal resolution, we observe an
acoustic membrane breathing mode with spatially modulated amplitude, governed
by the optical near field structure at the membrane edge. Furthermore, an
in-plane polarized acoustic shock wave is launched at the membrane edge, which
triggers secondary acoustic shear waves with a pronounced spatio-temporal
dependency. The experimental findings are compared to numerical acoustic wave
simulations in the continuous medium limit, highlighting the importance of
microscopic dissipation mechanisms and ballistic transport channels.
