Klein tunneling for Lamb waves in elastic phononic crystal plates
Nan Gao, Jiao Wang, Weiqiu Chen
Abstract
Klein tunneling is an intriguing phenomenon in quantum mechanics, which refers to the unity transmission of particles through a higher energy barrier without hindrance in the case of normal incidence. The introduction of phononic crystals enables the direct observation of this phenomenon from a different point, giving rise to a broader application prospect. In this paper, we aim at realizing the Klein tunneling for elastic plate waves. To this end, we combine two kinds of Y-shaped phononic crystals with different Dirac point energies to structure a sandwich-like plate, which supports the propagation of Lamb waves while artificially introducing a potential barrier. Under such a configuration, perfect wave transmission regardless of the barrier in a wide frequency range can be realized, which also enables the numerical prediction and experimental observation of the Klein tunneling phenomenon in Lamb waves. The results of this work provide a direction and reference for the design and applications of phononic crystal devices, such as the chip-scale elastic waveguides.