Deaf band based engineered Dirac cone in a periodic acoustic metamaterial: A numerical and experimental study

A Dirac-cone-like dispersion at the center of the Brillouin zone where the wave number k =0 [L. Brillouin, Wave Propagation in Periodic Structures (Dover, New York, 1953)], is rare and only happens due to accidental degeneracy. At certain frequencies, the Dirac cone breaks the time-reversal symmetry of acoustic waves, which has not yet been fully explored. In this paper, even the simplest geometric microarchitecture of phononic crystals (PnCs) in a periodic structure can be modulated to obtain the accidental triple degeneracies that make a Dirac-like cone at the Γ point (k =0). While doing so, it was observed that the frequency of a nondispersive »deaf» band obtained from any arbitrary periodic structure made of similar PnCs remains unaltered. Then, a deaf band based predictive modulation of the PnCs is realized, and multiple occurrences of the Dirac-like points are demonstrated. The claims are validated using a numerical and experimental study of a baseline periodic structure having a square array of cylindrical polyvinylchloride inclusions in an air matrix. Phenomena such as orthogonal wave transport, negative refraction, and wave vortex are verified to exist at the deaf band based engineered Dirac cone.