Engineering nonreciprocal acoustic materials and microwave systems through phonon-assisted directional coupling

Abstract

Time-reversal (T) symmetry is a fundamental characteristic of stationary media, but breaking of reciprocity is required for many applications in signal source protection, isolation, circulation, shielding, and cloaking. Achieving nonreciprocal behavior is thus a fundamental challenge that extends across many physical domains, including optics, electronics, and acoustics. While there have already been many developments in optical and electronic nonreciprocal structures, the field of acoustics has been left far behind. In the proposed work, by leveraging recent achievements in optics and electromagnetics the focus will be on developing new nonreciprocal acoustic materials. The specific research tasks are:1. Demonstrate experimentally the principles of achieving strong nonreciprocity using space and time-modulated coupling elements in microwave and acoustic devices. This ~synthetic phonon~ approach can be applied to a variety of systems. We will investigate how to produce essential nonreciprocal components, especially gyrators, isolators, and circulators.2. Develop nanoscale and micro-scale acoustic systems based on the synthetic phonon concept to enable miniaturization of device architectures.3. Investigate experimentally techniques for expanding the bandwidth in the nonreciprocal systems that we explore through a variety of approaches, including multiresonant and dithered system architectures.4. Develop all-acoustic nonreciprocal prototype devices and unidirectional metasurface cloaks using the demonstrated nonreciprocal platforms.

Document Details

Document Type
DoD Grant Award
Publication Date
Feb 03, 2017
Source ID
N000141712209

Entities

People

  • Gaurav Bahl

Organizations

  • Office of Naval Research
  • United States Navy
  • University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign

Tags

Fields of Study

  • Engineering
  • Physics

Readers

  • Microwave Engineering.
  • Quantum Dot Semiconductor Device Photonics and Graphene Optoelectronic Materials and THz Physics.

Technology Areas

  • Microelectronics
  • Space