Experimental evidence of high-frequency complete elastic bandgap in pillar-based phononic slabs

We present strong experimental evidence for the existence of a complete phononic bandgap, for Lamb waves, in the high frequency regime (i.e., 800 MHz) for a pillar-based phononic crystal (PnC) membrane with a triangular lattice of gold pillars on top. The membrane is composed of an aluminum nitride film stacked on thin molybdenum and silicon layers. Experimental characterization shows a large attenuation of at least 20 dB in the three major crystallographic directions of the PnC lattice in the frequency range of 760 MHz–820 MHz, which is in agreement with our finite element simulations of the PnC bandgap. The results of experiments are analyzed and the physics behind the attenuation in different spectral windows is explained methodically by assessing the type of Bloch modes and the in-plane symmetry of the displacement profile.