A highly attenuating and frequency tailorable annular hole phononic crystal for surface acoustic waves

Surface acoustic wave (SAW) devices are widely used for signal processing, sensing and increasingly for lab-on-a-chip applications. Phononic crystals can control the propagation of SAW, analogous to photonic crystals, enabling components such as waveguides and cavities. Here we present an approach for the realisation of robust, tailorable SAW phononic crystals, based on annular holes patterned in a SAW substrate. Using simulations and experiments, we show that this geometry supports local resonances which create highly attenuating phononic bandgaps at frequencies with negligible coupling of SAWs into other modes, even for relatively shallow features. The enormous bandgap attenuation is up to an order-of-magnitude larger than that achieved with a pillar phononic crystal of the same size, enabling effective phononic crystals to be made up of smaller numbers of elements. This work transforms the ability to exploit phononic crystals for developing novel SAW device concepts, mirroring contemporary progress in photonic crystals.The control and manipulation of propagating sound waves on a surface has applications in on-chip signal processing and sensing. Here, Ash et al. deviate from standard designs and fabricate frequency tailorable phononic crystals with an order-of-magnitude increase in attenuation.