Broadband reconfigurable logic gates in phonon waveguides

The high-quality-factor mechanical resonator in electromechanical systems has facilitated dynamic control of phonons via parametric nonlinear processes and paved the development of mechanical logic-elements. However, the narrow spectral bandwidth of the resonating element constrains the available nonlinear phenomena thus limiting the functionality of the device as well as the switching speeds. Here we have developed phonon waveguides, with a two-octave-wide phonon transmission band, in which mechanical four-wave-like mixing is demonstrated that enables the frequency of phonon waves to be converted over 1 MHz. We harness this platform to execute multiple binary mechanical logic gates in parallel, via frequency division multiplexing in this broadband, where each gate can be independently reconfigured. The fidelity of the binary gates is verified via temporal measurements yielding eye diagrams which confirm the availability of high speed logic operations. The phonon waveguide architecture thus offers the broadband functionality that is essential to realising mechanical signal processors.