Acoustic Defect-Mode Waveguides Fabricated in Sonic Crystal: Numerical Analyses by Elastic Finite-Difference Time-Domain Method

A novel acoustic waveguide composed of a line of single defects in a sonic crystal is shown to have desirable properties for acoustic circuits. The absence of a scatterer, i.e., a single defect or a point defect, in artificial crystals such as photonic crystals and phononic crystals leads to some localized resonant modes around the defect. Single defects in a sonic crystal made of acrylic resin cylinders in air are shown in this paper to have resonant modes or defect modes, which are excited successively to form a mode guided along a line of defects. Both a straight waveguide and a sharp bending waveguide composed of lines of single defects are shown equally to have a good transmission with small reflections at the inlet as well as at the outlet within the full band gap of the sonic crystal. Their advantages over conventional line-defect waveguides are clearly shown by their transmission versus frequency characteristics and also by typical examples of their spatial acoustic field distribution. On the basis of these properties, coupled defect-mode waveguides are investigated, and a high mode-coupling ratio is obtained. Defect-mode waveguides in a sonic crystal are expected to be desirable elements for functional acoustic circuits. The results of the elastic finite difference time domain (FDTD) method used as a tool of numerical calculation are also investigated and precisely compared with the experimental band gaps.