Interfacial shear horizontal (SH) waves propagating in a two-phase piezoelectric/piezomagnetic structure with an imperfect interface

Shear waves propagating along the imperfectly bonded interface of a magnetoelectric composite consisting of Piezoelectric (PE) and Piezomagnetic (PM) phases are considered. An exact dispersion relation is obtained. It is found that the interfacial imperfection strongly affects the velocity of interfacial shear waves. The existence condition of the interfacial shear waves is derived. In particular, for certain combined magnetoelectric composites, interfacial shear waves do no exist for perfect interface and exist only for imperfect interface. Moreover, the corresponding waves are dispersive, and the range of the phase velocity is derived, lying between the smaller of the Bleustein–Gulyaev waves of two PE and PM materials and the interfacial waves for the perfect bonding. These findings are useful for PE/PM composites in the microwave technology.