The propagation of acoustic waves in a square-lattice phononic crystal slab consisting of a single layer of spherical steel beads in a solid epoxy matrix is studied experimentally. Waves are excited by an ultrasonic transducer and fully characterized on the slab surface by laser interferometry. A complete band gap is found to extend around 300 kHz, in good agreement with theoretical predictions. The transmission attenuation caused by absorption and band gap effects is obtained as a function of frequency and propagation distance. Well confined acoustic wave propagation inside a line-defect waveguide is further observed experimentally.

International audiencePhononic crystals with triangular and honeycomb lattices are investigated experimentally and theoretically. They are composed of arrays of steel cylinders immersed in water. The measured transmission spectra reveal the existence of complete band gaps but also of deaf bands. Band gaps and deaf bands are identified by comparing band structure computations, obtained by a periodic-boundary finite element method, with transmission simulations, obtained using the finite difference time domain method. The appearance of flat bands and the polarization of the associated eigenmodes is also discussed. Triangular and honeycomb phononic crystals with equal cylinder diameter and smallest spacing are compared. As previously obtained with air-solid phononic crystals, it is found that the first complete band gap opens for the honeycomb lattice but not for the triangular lattice, thanks to symmetry reduction