Full band-gap silicon phononic crystals for surface acoustic waves

Periodic elastic structures, called phononic crystals, show interesting frequency domain characteristics that can greatly influence the performance of acoustic and ultrasonic devices for several applications. Phononic crystals are acoustic counterparts of the extensively-investigated photonic crystals that are made by varying material properties periodically. Here we demonstrate the existence of phononic band-gaps for surface acoustic waves (SAWs) in a half-space of two dimensional phononic crystals consisting of hexagonal (honeycomb) arrangement of air cylinders in a crystalline Silicon background with low filling fraction. A theoretical calculation of band structure for bulk wave using finite element method is also achieved and shows that there is no complete phononic band gap in the case of the low filling fraction. Fabrication of the holes in Silicon is done by optical lithography and deep Silicon dry etching. In the experimental characterization, we have used slanted finger interdigitated transducers deposited on a thin layer of Zinc oxide (sputtered on top of the phononic crystal structure to excite elastic surface waves in Silicon) to cover a wide range of frequencies. We believe this to be the first reported demonstration of phononic band-gap for SAWs in a hexagonal lattice phononic crystal at such a high frequency.