Extraordinary transmission of gigahertz surface acoustic waves

Extraordinary transmission of waves, i.e. a transmission superior to the amount predicted by geometrical considerations of the aperture alone, has to date only been studied in the bulk. Here we present a new class of extraordinary transmission for waves confined in two dimensions to a flat surface. By means of acoustic numerical simulations in the gigahertz range, corresponding to acoustic wavelengths λ ~ 3–50 μm, we track the transmission of plane surface acoustic wave fronts between two silicon blocks joined by a deeply subwavelength bridge of variable length with or without an attached cavity. Several resonant modes of the structure, both one- and two-dimensional in nature, lead to extraordinary acoustic transmission, in this case with transmission efficiencies, i.e. intensity enhancements, up to ~23 and ~8 in the two respective cases. We show how the cavity shape and bridge size influence the extraordinary transmission efficiency. Applications include new metamaterials and subwavelength imaging.