Phys.org July 3, 2024
Phonon engineering at the nanoscale holds immense promise for a myriad of applications. However, the design of phononic devices continues to rely on regular shapes chosen according to long-established simple rules. Researchers in Japan demonstrated an inverse design approach to create a two-dimensional phononic metasurface exhibiting a highly anisotropic phonon dispersion along the main axes of the Brillouin zone. A partial hypersonic bandgap was present along one axis, with gap closure along the orthogonal axis which was achieved through genetically optimized unit cells, with shapes exceeding conventional intuition. They experimentally validated their theoretical predictions using Brillouin light scattering, confirming the effectiveness of the inverse design method. According to the researchers their approach unlocked the potential for automated engineering of phononic metasurfaces with on-demand functionalities, for innovative phononic devices beyond the limitations of traditional design paradigms… read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLEÂ
