PRINCIPLE OF WORKING OF SONIC CRYSTALS - 1

Lecture 36

Prof. Sneha Singh

Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Department

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 Outline

• Irreducible Brillouin Zone

• Working principle of sonic crystals
• Wave spectral gap (Band gap) in periodic structures
– Bloch’s theorem

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 Irreducible Brillouin zone

Brillouin zone

2D Reciprocal Square lattice

Irreducible Brillouin zone

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 Irreducible Brillouin zone

Brillouin zone

2D Reciprocal Hexagonal lattice

Irreducible Brillouin zone

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 Irreducible Brillouin Zone (IBZ)

• Identification of irreducible Brillouin zone (IBZ) is important

because the knowledge of wave propagation through this
zone is sufficient to understand the wave propagation through
the entire crystal.

• Results from IBZ can be replicated using symmetrical

operations to obtain results for the entire crystal.

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 Irreducible Brillouin Zone (IBZ)
• Instead of computing wave equations for
every point within the volume of IBZ, a
common practice is to compute results
only along the perimeter of IBZ.

• This is because in most cases, extremes of

frequency bands of wave propagation
occur at key points of symmetry.

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 Irreducible Brillouin Zone (IBZ)
• A typical acoustic response of a crystal is
represented as follows:
Frequency

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 Irreducible Brillouin Zone (IBZ)
• A typical acoustic response of a crystal is
represented as follows:
Frequency

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 Irreducible Brillouin Zone (IBZ)
• A typical acoustic response of a crystal is
represented as follows:
Frequency

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 Working principle of sonic crystals
• Sonic crystals are used for the purpose of:
– Sound attenuation
– Sound bending

• Principle of working of sonic crystals to achieve these remarkable

properties are:
– Classical wave spectral gap in structures with periodic variation in
elastic properties
– Local resonance that leads to negative effective elastic properties
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 Wave spectral gap (Band gap) in periodic structures
• This concept states that a strong periodic modulation in density
and/or bulk modulus can create spectral gaps (or frequency bands)
that forbid wave propagation.

• Thus, a complete sound attenuation for a certain frequency range can

be achieved.

• For this, spatial modulation or spatial period must be of the same

order as the wavelengths in the spectral gap.

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 Wave spectral gap (Band gap) in periodic structures
• Bloch’s theorem: The acoustic field inside a periodic structure takes
on the same symmetry and periodicity of the structures.

• A typical wave inside periodic structures as predicted by Bloch’s

theorem is called “Bloch wave” and is mathematically represented as:

Periodic term Plane wave-like term

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 Wave spectral gap (Band gap) in periodic structures
• Solving wave equation using Bloch’s theorem yields the following
properties of Bloch waves:
1. Bloch waves are quantized, and exist as discrete orthogonal modes
called Bloch modes.
2. Bloch modes must have same periodicity as the periodic crystal
3. Acoustic intensity of lowest order mode tends to reside in acoustically
denser region (or region with higher acoustic impedance)

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 Wave spectral gap (Band gap) in periodic structures
• Let’s say we have following periodic crystal:
d s

d = diameter (or thickness) of sonic scatterers

s = spacing between the scatterers
a = lattice constant = distance between centres of adjacent sonic scatterers

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 Wave spectral gap (Band gap) in periodic structures
• Let’s say we have following periodic crystal:
d s
Bloch mode 2
Bloch mode 1
a

• From properties of Bloch waves, we get two orthogonal waves with

same spatial periodicity (same wavelength/ same wave number):

Eq. (1)

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 Wave spectral gap (Band gap) in periodic structures
d s
Bloch mode 2
Bloch mode 1
a
• Mode 1 resides in higher impedance material, i.e. its pressure maxima
lies in the scatterers. Mode 2 is orthogonal to mode 1, so its pressure
maxima lies in fluid medium.
• Therefore, acoustic energy, which is proportional to pressure
magnitude and inversely proportional to acoustic impedance is higher
for mode 2.

• But, 17
 Wave spectral gap (Band gap) in periodic structures
d s
Bloch mode 2
Bloch mode 1

• But due to same waveform:

• And, for the overall periodic crystal:
• Therefore,

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 Wave spectral gap (Band gap) in periodic structures
• Thus, in a periodic crystal arrangement, from Bloch’s theorem we find
that all Bloch modes have different frequencies.

• Thus, allowable frequencies are discrete and separate.

• This leads to frequency bands over which no wave propagation is

allowed through the crystal. These frequency bands are called band
gaps.

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Thank You

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