Tuning of Surface-Acoustic-Wave Dispersion via Magnetically Modulated Contact Resonances

Devices based on surface acoustic waves (SAWs) are employed in many engineering domains, for example, as delay lines and filters in electronics, and as particle sensors for lab-on-chip systems. All of these applications would benefit from tunable devices that can vary the frequency and speed of the traveling signal. The authors present a tunable metamaterial platform to control SAWs, exploiting contact resonances modulated with permanent magnets to generate and shift SAW band gaps. The concept could be miniaturized for application in telecommunication and sensors.