Propagation of acoustic surface waves on a phononic surface investigated by transient reflecting grating spectroscopy

We present a study of surface acoustic waves (SAW) propagation on a 1D phononic surface (PS) by mean of an heterodyne-detected transient reflecting grating experiment. We excited and detected coherent stationary SAWs characterized by variable wave-vectors. The measured SAW frequencies enables the characterization of the band diagram of this PS sample beyond the first Brillouin zone (BZ). Four different SAW frequencies have been revealed, whose band diagram show articulated dispersion phenomena. In order to address the nature of the investigated SAWs, the experimental results are compared with a numerical simulation of elastic modes based on a finite element model. The observed SAWs are addressed to four Bloch waves characterized by different frequencies and surface energy localization. Moreover, we measured the SAW propagation on a flat non-phononic part of the sample surface and compared it with results from the PS. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.