Design of non-reciprocal acoustic waveguides by indirect interband transitions

We numerically demonstrate a non-reciprocal acoustic waveguide by utilizing the indirect interband transition between two guided modes. The waveguide, consisting of a water core sandwiched between parallel steel plates, is designed to support symmetric and asymmetric guided modes with different frequencies and wavevectors. Dynamic mode conversion is then achieved by applying spatio-temporal density modulation in the core of the waveguide to induce both frequency and wavevector shifts of the incident guided wave. Numerical simulations prove that the phase matching condition is satisfied only for the forward propagation, not for the backward one, thus realizing the non-reciprocal acoustic waveguide. Our approach based on a linear dynamic system may achieve wide-band tunable operation with a low-energy consumption, paving the way toward the sophisticated acoustic diode applications.