Arab Journal of Basic and Applied Sciences

ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/tabs20

Surface acoustic waves interaction with confined

acoustic phonons in a coupled nanoridges dimer
set atop of a multilayer design

Mohamed El Ghafiani, Adnane Noual, Yamina Rezzouk, Mohammed

Moutaouekkil & El Houssaine El Boudouti

To cite this article: Mohamed El Ghafiani, Adnane Noual, Yamina Rezzouk, Mohammed
Moutaouekkil & El Houssaine El Boudouti (2023) Surface acoustic waves interaction with
confined acoustic phonons in a coupled nanoridges dimer set atop of a multilayer design, Arab
Journal of Basic and Applied Sciences, 30:1, 593-600, DOI: 10.1080/25765299.2023.2271220

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/25765299.2023.2271220

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UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis
Group on behalf of the University of
Bahrain.

Published online: 20 Oct 2023.

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ARAB JOURNAL OF BASIC AND APPLIED SCIENCES University of Bahrain
2023, VOL. 30, NO. 1, 593–600
https://doi.org/10.1080/25765299.2023.2271220

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Surface acoustic waves interaction with confined acoustic phonons in a

coupled nanoridges dimer set atop of a multilayer design
Mohamed El Ghafiani, Adnane Noual , Yamina Rezzouk, Mohammed Moutaouekkil and El Houssaine
El Boudouti
LPMR, D�epartement de Physique, Facult�e des Sciences, Universit�e Mohamed Premier, Oujda, Morocco

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

We present a comprehensive study using finite element numerical analysis of the acoustic Received 21 July 2023
localized phonons supported by a gold nanoridges dimer-based multilayer design. The latter Revised 31 August 2023
consists in a SiO2-substrate over which a gold film covered with a thin polymer is deposited. Accepted 11 October 2023
We investigate first the mechanical eigen-modes analysis of a single monomer ridge, where
KEYWORDS
we find flexural and compressional type modes in the sub-GHz frequency range. This is real­ Dimer nanoridges; localized
ized by either setting the ridge in a periodic structure, which enables to get the dispersion acoustic phonons;
curve of the modes, or by considering an isolated system bounded by perfect matched multilayer design; surface
layers, where we use the equivalent of the local density of states to track the modes. A acoustic waves
good agreement is obtained between the two methods. Similarly, we find in case of the
coupled dimer ridges hybridized modes, namely the flexural and compressional modes of a
monomer split-up into in- and -out-of-phase type modes. We demonstrate efficient coupling
between the monomer/dimer localized phonons with surface acoustic waves (SAWs) as the
simulated transmission spectra show dips at the frequencies of the monomer/dimer eigenm­
odes. For symmetry reasons, some of the dimer modes are expected to be optomechanically
active. The proposed SAW-based device is meant to help design acousto-optic modulators
or ultrasensitive sensors.

1. Introduction optomechanical cavity (Arregui et al., 2023). In particu­

Control and modulation of light properties in nano­
scale photonic structures based on the design of
acousto-optic nanodevices has concentrated a lot of
attention lately (Laude et al., 2017; Gao et al., 2023).
Such components can be useful in quantum informa­
tion processing as well as to significantly enhance
light-matter interaction at the nanoscale (Sansa et al.,
2020; Barzanjeh et al., 2022). Physically speaking, the
acousto-optical coupling (AOC) is described by two
mechanisms namely, i) the photoelastic and ii) the
moving boundary effects. In the latter, the boundaries
deformations between two adjacent materials induce
a local variation of the dielectric constant all along the
interface (Royer & Dieulesaint, 2000) while in the for­
mer effect, the dielectric is modulated locally within
the volume by the acoustic strain field (Balram,
Davanço, Lim, Song, & Srinivasan, 2014). In order to
reach a meaningful AOC magnitude, an appreciable
overlap between the phonon field and the optical
mode is essential, and this is often realized by colocal­
izing the latter in the same volume such as in an
lar, a very promising new kind of OM cavities has been
proposed based on the so-called phoxonic crystals
that exhibit band gaps for both photons and pho­
nons, giving rise to highly localized light and sound
waves, and subsequently to enhanced AOC rates
(Aram & Khorasani, 2018).
Lately, nanoscale multilayered structured designs
have attracted a great deal of interest due to their
exquisite properties in terms of highly localized
acoustic and optical modes they exhibit (Dobrzynski
et al., 2017; Noual, Akiki, Pennec, El Boudouti, &
Djafari-Rouhani, 2020). A special class of these struc­
tures is often referred to as film-coupled nanopar­
ticles or particles on mirror due to the coupling of
metallic nanoparticles to their image within a metal-
film underneath (Li, Zhang, Maier, & Lei, 2018). One
key feature of such designs is the strongly localized
surface plasmons resonances modes they support,
which have been harnessed in various applications
(Saada et al, 2020; Oo, Silva et al, 2016; Cheng & Xu,
2021). In particular, localized surface plasmons have
been shown useful in order to enhance inelastic

CONTACT Adnane Noual noualad@yahoo.fr LPMR, D�epartement de Physique, Facult�e des Sciences, Universit�e Mohamed Premier, 60000
Oujda, Morocco.
This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.
� 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group on behalf of the University of Bahrain.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/),
which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The terms on which this
article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.
594 M. EL GHAFIANI ET AL.
Brillouin scattering (Noual, Kang, et al., 2021;
Vasileiadis et al., 2022). Besides, the use of surface
acoustic waves (SAWs) with high amplitudes
(� nm), helps to increase vibration magnitudes of
localized phonons in metallic nanoparticles, which
enhances the AOC rate meaningfully (Lin, Lin, & Hsu,
2015; Noual, Akiki, L�ev^eque, Pennec, & Djafari-
Rouhani, 2021).
To design a SAW-device for enhanced AOC, we
thoroughly investigate in this work localized acoustic
phonons in a gold dimer ridges-based component
using SAW. Specifically, numerical simulations using
Comsol-Multiphysics are performed, so to find local­
ized mechanical eigen-modes supported by the
nanostructure, with a particular focus on the pho­
nons considered potentially useful for AOC. The pro­
posed device consists in SiO2 substrate over which a
gold film covered with a thin polymer is deposited.
Atop the structure surface, a gold nano-ridge dimer
is placed, where each ridge contains a thin polymer
layer lying in the middle. This feature can be used
for the excitation of localized plasmons within the
polymer layer that could be strongly modulated by
localized phonons in the ridge. Prior studies have
only considered localized plasmons mostly under the
particles, meaning that the current design offers a
supplemental degree of freedom. In order to under­
stand the physical origin of the dimer-based system
eigenmodes, we analyze the modes of a single
monomer first. We show efficient excitation of com­
pressional-like and flexural type eigen-modes of the
dimer using SAWs in the sub-GHz range, where the
coupled ridges hybridize their modes, yielding in-
and -out-of-phase type modes. The symmetry of the
modes indicate that compressional modes and anti-
phase flexural modes should be optomechanically
active (Noual, Akiki, et al., 2021). The reported find­
ings in this paper could help design SAW-based
acousto-optic modulators or ultrasensitive nanosen­
sors, due to the easily accessible fabrication technol­
ogy of SAW-devices nowadays (Mei, Zhang, & Friend,
2020; Kelly, Northfield, Rashid, Bao, & Berini, 2022).
2. Single monomer ridge eigenmodes
In this section, we analyse the mechanical eigenmo­
des of a single monomer ridge. We shall do this
using two complementary approaches, namely, by
studying first a periodic structure and then by per­
forming a thorough eigen-analysis of the isolated
ridge.
2.1. Periodic structure
We consider a periodic structure in which the single
ridge atop the multilayer is repeated periodically
along the x− direction as depicted in Figure 1(a).
More precisely, the structure design is made of a
gold ridge of height h and width w, with a thin layer
of polyamide of height hpol placed at the middle.
The ridge monomer is deposited over a thin poly­
amide layer of thickness epol which coats a gold film
measuring eAu. We chose a SiO2 semi-infinite sub­
strate to support the multilayer (Figure 1(a)). It is
worth indicating that the method followed here,
enables us to compute the dispersion curve of the
system which gives a global insight regarding the
modes supported by the structure, including the
localized type modes and their properties in terms
of dispersion and symmetry. For that matter, we per­
form an eigenfrequency study of the system as the
wave vector k spans the first Brillouin zone, ½0 −
p=a�, where a is the period. Numerically, the period­
icity is set using Bloch boundary conditions, and the
eigenvalue equation is solved using structural
mechanics module of Comsol 5.2a. At the bottom of
the unit-cell of the lattice we use perfectly matched
layer (PML) which absorb incident waves without
reflections, in order to mimic a semi-infinite (SiO2)
substrate. The elastic properties of the materials are
defined based on young’s modulus E, Poisson ratio m
and the density q as follows: E ¼ 3:6GPa, Poison
ratio m ¼ 0:34 and the density q ¼ 1420kg=m3 for
the polyamide, and E ¼ 72:2GPa, m ¼
0:168 and q ¼ 2200kg=m3 for the glass substrate
SiO2 (Royer & Dieulesaint, 2000). As for the gold
layer which is an anisotropic material with face cen­
tered cubic crystal, its elastic constants
C11 , C12 and C44 were taken from the same refer­
ence. Figure 1(b) shows the simulated dispersion
curve for a ¼ 2 lm, w ¼ 320nm, h ¼
300nm, hpol ¼ 50nm, epol ¼ 50nm and eAu ¼
100nm, while H � 2:5a was taken large enough to
mimic a semi-infinite substrate. As mentioned above,
we focus our analysis on the modes at the edge of
the first Brillouin zone, i.e. k ¼ p=a, situated under
the SiO2-sound line labelled as A1, A2, A3, and A4,
which do not propagate within the substrate. The
field maps of the displacement field norm associated
with such modes near the monomer are given in
Figure 1(c). According to the field maps, the four
branches modes (A1, A2, A3, and A4) are localized
within the ridge with different rates, meaning that
these are rather eigenmodes of the latter. As a mat­
ter of fact, the first branch A1 is a first order flexural
mode at f A1 � 0:227GHz, the mode A2 at f A2 �
0:463GHz is a compressional mode, whilst modes
(A3, A4) at f A4 � 0:555GHz and f A5 � 0:684GHz, cor­
respond to the second order flexural mode which
splits into two branches. This, happens due to its
coupling with the gold/polymer films vibrations

Figure 1. (a) Schematic representation of the multilayer design unit-cell in case when a single monomer is set atop. Bloch
periodic conditions are set along x− axis. (b) Simulated dispersion curves of the geometry of (a), for the geometrical parame­
ters: a ¼ 2 lm, w ¼ 320 nm, h ¼ 300 nm, hpol ¼ 50 nm, epol ¼ 50 nm, H � 2:5a and eAu ¼ 100 nm: (c) Displacement
field norm maps near the monomer at the frequencies of the first Brillouin zone edge modes referred to as A1, A2, A3, and
A4 in the dispersion plot, in (b).
possibly induced by the periodicity effect, namely,
the interaction with neighboring cells.
Indeed, the ridge-films coupling is apparent in the
field maps (Figure 1(c)) of modes A3 and A4. Note in
particular the strong Sezawa type mode in the films
interacting with the flexural mode A4 of the ridge,
where the two modes vibrate in-phase. Conversely,
for mode A3 the films and the ridge seem to vibrate
out-of-phase, meaning that they tend to cancel-out.
This might explain why the branch A3 is less disper­
sive comparing to A4, where the film and the ridge
add-up their vibrations. In other words, there is
more coupling with neighboring cells in this latter
mode, hence the dispersion. The branch A1 is pretty
much flat, due to a strong localization of such mode
in the ridge as compared to the rest of the modes.
In such mode, the ridge is clearly decoupled from its
surrounding i.e. the films and substrate.
2.2. Isolated single ridge
Here, we study the eigen-vibrations of a single
monomer ridge. In other words, the particle is com­
pletely isolated which enables to retrieve the modes
of the ridge independently of any exterior perturb­
ation by opposition to the periodic structure. This is
performed by surrounding the ridge atop the multi­
layer with PMLs all along except the top surface
which is set to vibrate freely; this enables to absorb
incoming waves towards the boundaries (PMLs) with
no reflections. Numerically speaking, we solve the
same eigen-value problem where the Bloch periodic
conditions are replaced by PMLs as boundary
ARAB JOURNAL OF BASIC AND APPLIED SCIENCES 595
conditions. To track the modes, we compute the
integral of the square modulus of the displacement
field in the monomer normalized to its value in the
whole system, namely:
ð ð
* *
qN ¼ |U |2 dV= ||U ||2 dV (1)
Monomer system
!
where, U ¼ ðu, v, wÞ represents the displacement
field with components u, v, w along the spatial axes
x, y, and z, respectively (which is adopted through­
*
out the paper). Noting that, ||U ||2 is the equivalent
of the local density of states (LDOS) (Economou,
2006), the computed quantity qN is proportional to
the normalized integral of LDOS within the ridge,
which yields the localized eigenmodes of the latter.
In Figure 2(c), we give the simulations results of qN
versus the eigen-frequency. The plot shows the exist­
ence of three peaks at the frequencies f M1 �
0:226GHz, f M2 � 0:517GHz, and f M3 � 0:602GHz:
Such peaks match respectively the modes (A1, A2,
A3/A4) studied previously (Figure 1(b)). In particular,
it is interesting to note that modes A3 and A4 now
appear as one mode (at f M3 � 0:602GHz) namely the
second order flexural mode of the ridge, this is due
to the non-coupling with neighboring cells as the
ridge is now isolated.
One observes that the frequencies of the modes
are slightly different comparing with the periodic
structure except for the first flexural mode
(fM1 � 0:226 GHz). As mentioned earlier, there is
some coupling in modes A2 and A3/A4 with neigh­
boring cells while for mode A1 the coupling is weak.
As a result, for the isolated ridge, the frequency of
596 M. EL GHAFIANI ET AL.

Figure 2. (a) Sketch of the geometry model used to study the transmission of SAWs through one ridge. PMLs are set all
around the structure to get Rid of undesired reflections. (b) Displacement field component v, normalized to the maximum dis­
placement field norm in the system, in the absence of the monomer, at f ¼ 0:444 GHz: (c) Integral of the square modulus
of the displacement field in the monomer normalized to its integral in the whole system. (d) Transmission coefficient through
a monomer normalized to that of a flat surface without the latter. (e) Zoom in of the displacement field around the monomer
at the frequencies, f M1 ¼ 0:231 GHz, f M2 ¼ 0:518 GHz and f M3 ¼ 0:604 GHz of the modes referred to as M1, M2, and M3
in (d).

the latter is almost the same whereas for the other
modes there is a slight shift. Besides, the relative
height of the peaks shows that the first-order flex­
ural mode (P1) is the most localized mode (i.e. the
elastic energy if localized solely in the ridge) fol­
lowed by the higher-order flexural mode and then
the compressional mode where part of the elastic
energy is diffused in the surface layers and the sub­
strate under the ridge.
Now, we use the SAW-platform in order to excite
the ridge mechanical eigen-modes. The structure
design is depicted in Figure 2(a). The geometrical
parameters are the same as in Figure 1(a). It should
be pointed-out that we perform a frequency
response analysis of the structure, where the excita­
tion of SAW is realized using a harmonic vertical line
!
force F ¼ Fei2pft !
z at the system inlet on top (see
Figure 2(a)); where f is the frequency and t is the
time. Figure 2(b) shows an example of SAW excita­
tion at around 0:444 GHz, in which we have
�qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi �
depicted w=max
�qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi �
max juj2 þ jwj2 represents the maximum value
of the displacement norm in the whole system. We
see the effective excitation of the SAWs and their
complete absorption inside the PMLs regions pre­
venting any undesired reflections. Let us indicate
that the normalized transmission coefficient of the
structure is computed by taking a line average of
the registered displacement field magnitude
�qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi �
j uj 2 þ j w j 2 near the output. The normalization
is performed with respect to the system in absence
of the ridges. Figure 2(d) shows the simulated trans­
mission spectrum computed in the frequency range
½0:2 GHz − 0:7 GHz�: The curve shows the excitation
of three modes at the frequencies f1 � 0:231 GHz
(M1), f2 � 0:518 GHz (M2) and f3 � 0:604 GHz
(M3). The frequencies match very well the position
of the peaks shown in Figure 2(c). These modes cor­
respond to the first-order flexural mode (M1), the
compressional mode (M2), and the higher-order flex­
ural mode (M3). These results show clearly, the effi­
cient excitation of the localized phonons of the
single ridge using SAWs.
3. Dimer ridges eigenmodes
3.1. Periodic structure
juj2 þ jwj2 map, where
We analyse in this paragraph the eigenmodes of a
coupled dimer made of two identical ridges having the
same dimensions as in Figure 1(a), and separated with
the distance ds ¼ 50 nm: For that, we follow the same
approaches as in the case of the monomer (Figures 1
and 2) namely, in a first step, the ridges are placed atop
the system in a unit-cell repeated periodically along −x
axis, as shown in Figure 3(a). Figure 3(b) shows the

Figure 3. (a) Depiction of the geometry model unit-cell used for the study of the dimer eigenmodes. Bloch periodic condi­
tions are set for periodicity. (b) Computed dispersion curve for the system in (a), for the following parameters values: a ¼
2 lm, w ¼ 320nm, h ¼ 300nm, hpol ¼ 50nm, epol ¼ 50nm, eAu ¼ 100nm and ds ¼ 50nm: (c) Displacement field norm
maps near the dimer at the frequencies of the first Brillouin zone edge modes referred to as B1 up to B6 in (b).
simulated dispersion curves (of the system in Figure
3(a)). We notice the existence of six branches, labelled
as B1 up to B6, underneath the SiO2-line with the corre­
sponding frequencies at the edge of the first Brillouin
zone (k ¼ p=a), respectively,
fB1 ’ 0:221 GHz, fB2 ’ 0:236 GHz, fB3 ’ 0:427 GHz, ­
fB4 ’ 0:522 GHz, fB5 ’ 0:556 GHz and fB6 ’
0:618 GHz: One observes a split-up of the modes
(Figure 3(b)) associated with a single monomer, yielding
the modes (B1, B2), (B3, B4) and (B5, B6); these are the
in- and out-of-phase modes of the first-order flexural
mode (A1), the compressional mode (A2) and the
second-order flexural mode (A3), respectively. This split­
ting occurs due to the strong coupling within the
dimer, which results in the hybridization of the individ­
ual modes associated with each monomer. This can be
seen in the displacement field norm maps near the
dimer at the frequencies of the latter modes (B1-B6), as
depicted in Figure 3(c). By opposition with the mono­
mer, the periodicity effect (coupling with neighbouring
cells) at the second order flexural modes (B5, B6) of the
dimer is different as no splitting is observed in the fre­
quency range of interest. Also, the out-of-phase com­
pressional mode B4 is influenced by periodicity as it is
clearly entrained in a flexion-like movement induced by
the films vibrations, in a Sezawa type mode.
3.2. Isolated dimer ridges eigenmodes
Similar to the previous case of a monomer, the eigen
modes of the dimer are studied using the geometry
ARAB JOURNAL OF BASIC AND APPLIED SCIENCES 597
model sketched in Figure 3(a), except that the Bloch
periodic conditions are replaced by PMLs, and the
top surface is set free. The determination of the
eigenmodes is done as earlier, that is, by computing
the normalized integral of the equivalent of LDOS
namely:
ð ð
* *
2
qN ¼ ||U || dV= ||U ||2 dV (2)
Dimer system
Note that the integration is obviously naturally
performed within the coupled dimer, that is, the two
ridges at the same time. In Figure 4(a), we present
the simulated results, where we notice the peaks
labelled as P1 up to P6 at the frequencies, f P1 ’
0:218GHz, f P2 ’ 0:236GHz, f P3 ’ 0:454GHz, f P4 ’
0:549GHz, f P5 ’ 0:577GHz, and f P6 ’ 0:622GHz,
respectively. In the inset of the figure (near the top),
we plot the spectrum of the average value of the
square modulus of the displacement field in the
D E
!
dimer || U ||2 in the frequency range, 0:4GHz −
0:7GHz: This slightly different way of finding local­
ized modes, enabled us to highlight the in-phase
compressional mode P3, which is otherwise almost
missing in the plot of qN : The reason for this is that
such a mode strongly radiates and couples with the
surrounding films and substrate, making it a less
localized mode to the point that its peak height is
nearly not visible in Figure 4(a). Overall, one notes a
good match of modes P1-P6 with the modes
obtained with the periodic lattice, B1-B6. There is
598 M. EL GHAFIANI ET AL.

Figure 4. (a) Plot of the integral of the square modulus of the displacement field in the dimer normalized to its integral in
the whole system. The inset shows the average of the square modulus of the displacement field in the dimer normalized to
the maximum value in the whole system. The dimer-based structure configuration used for computations is similar to the one
shown in Figure 3(a), except that PMLs are replaced by Bloch boundary conditions. (b) The dimer-based SAWs structure
design. This geometry is similar to the one in Figure 2(a), except that a dimer is set atop. (c) Simulated normalized transmis­
sion coefficient of the design in (b). the transmission of the monomer in the blue curve is overlaid with the dimer transmis­
sion plotted in red. (d) Zoom in of the displacement field around the dimer at the frequencies associated with the position of
the dips in the transmission labelled D1 up to D6, in (c).

slight shift in frequency depending on the mode
which can be attributed as before to the periodicity
effect or to the coupling with neighboring cells.
At this stage, we would like to show the possibil­
ity of exciting the localized acoustic phonons of the
dimer using SAWs. The SAWs-based platform, where
a dimer is atop the multilayer is shown in Figure
4(b). The frequency response analysis of the system
is performed as previously using vertical line force
on top near the inlet (see Figure 4(b)), to excite
SAWs. The normalized transmission spectrum of the
dimer-based SAWs design is computed is Figure 3(c)
using the same procedure as mentioned earlier. For
a matter of comparison, we overlay in Figure 4(c)
the transmission of the monomer (blue curve) and
that of the dimer (red curve).
The dips observed in case of the dimer (red curve)
are labelled D1 up to D6; they fall at the frequencies,
f D1 ’ 0:22GHz, f D2 ’ 0:238GHz, f D3 ’
0:456GHz, f D4 ’ 0:542GHz, f D5 ’ 0:576GHz and
f D6 ’ 0:619GHz respectively. According to the displace­
ment field norm maps at these frequencies, the dips
correspond, respectively, to the in-and out-of-phase first
flexural mode, compressional mode and second order
flexural mode. The modes’ frequencies match well the
frequencies positions of the peaks in Figure 4(a). The
comparison with the transmission of the monomer
shows that each dip associated with an eigenmode of
the monomer is split-up into two dips. Indeed, the elas­
tic coupling in the dimer induces a split of the modes
M1, M2 and M3 of the monomer, respectively, into the
modes, (D1, D2), (D3, D4), and (D5, D6), of the dimer.
These results show clearly the efficient excitation of the
dimer mechanical eigen-modes using SAWs.
4. Phonon modes selection for acousto-
plasmonic coupling purposes
In this last section, we want to provide insights
regarding the dimer-structure localized acoustic
 ARAB JOURNAL OF BASIC AND APPLIED SCIENCES 599

phonons modes that may be beneficial for acousto-
plasmonic coupling. It is important to note that
dimers-based designs have been shown to have
superior optical (Li, Zhang, & Lei, 2016), elastic and
optomechanical properties (Matheny, 2018) compar­
ing with monomers, making them the best choice
for enhanced phonon-plasmon interaction. As a mat­
ter of fact, we have demonstrated in this work that
dimers display a richer spectrum of localized pho­
nons in contrast to monomers, due to modes split­
ting of the latters. Besides, it has been found that
the out-of-phase flexural modes of the dimer turned
out to be optomechanically active while they
become inactive in case of monomers, and the in-
phase flexural and out-of-phase compressional
modes are proven inactive (Noual, Akiki, et al., 2021).
In the light of this, we shall analyse the acousto-plas­
monic properties of the following localized phonons
of the proposed dimer-system namely: the out-of-
phase flexural modes (B2 and B6) and the in-phase
compressional mode (mode B3).
In that regard, we would like to mention that the
polymer material underneath the dimer has been
shown to act as an effective optical cavity (see the
encircled region in Figure 5(a)) where localized sur­
face plasmons could be excited (Mrabti et al., 2016).
Thus, we examine the deformation induced by the
dimer phonons modes on this specific region. The
modes that deform this area volume shall cause
important local strain, which by virtue of the photoe­
lastic and/or moving boundary effects should cause
a shift in the plasmon frequency. In other words,
such phonons can be considered as optomechani­
cally active. In Figures 5(b)-5(d), we plot u and w
components of the displacement field normalized to
the max value of the latter in the system, and associ­
ated with modes, B2, B3 and B6, respectively. In
both first order (Figure 5(b)) and second order out-
of-phase flexural (Figure 5(d)) modes (B2 and B6),
the cavity undergoes a symmetrical elongation with
respect to the symmetry plane at the middle, for
both w and v, resulting into an important deform­
ation of its overall volume; hence such modes
should be optomechanically active. In the in-phase
compressional B3 (Figure 5(d)), the cavity is com­
pressed according to w, and symmetrically elon­
gated based on the u-field, which indicates that this
mode should also be active, in-line with earlier works
(Noual et al., 2020). We have omitted to discuss the
dimer phonons effect on probable localized surface
plasmons within the polymer layer in the middle of
each ridge. The reason is that except for the in-
phase compressional mode which we believe should
deform such a polymer layer where the plasmon
would be localized, the other modes require further
investigations, including the optical characterization
of such plasmons. We intend to do this in a forth­
coming work.
5. Conclusion
In conclusion, we have performed numerical simula­
tions to investigate localized acoustic phonons sup­
ported by a gold dimer nanoridges-based multilayer
design using finite element method. The structure
design consists of a coupled gold ridges dimer set
atop a thin polymer layer coating a thick gold film
that is deposited over a semi-infinite SiO2-substrate.
We have performed eigen-frequency analysis of the
system where the ridges are either isolated in a
finite system bounded by perfect matched layers or
set to form a periodic lattice which enables to get
the dispersion curve. In both cases, we have ana­
lysed the dimer eigenmodes by comparison with a

Figure 5. (a) Sketch of the dimer deposited on the polymer layer Covering the gold film, with a circular highlight of the poly­
mer area underneath the dimer, shown to act as an effective plasmonic cavity. (b) Plot of w and u components of the dis­
placement field, normalized with respect to the maximum value of the latter in the system, and associated with the first
flexural mode of the dimer. Each field map is tagged with the corresponding w or v component. Arrows highlight the dis­
placement field direction. (c), (d) Same as in (b), but for the in-phase compressional and second order flexural mode.
600 M. EL GHAFIANI ET AL.
single monomer. In the latter case, we found flexural
and compressional type modes in the sub-GHz
region. The elastic coupling in the dimer results in
the split of the monomer modes, yielding in- and
out-of-phase flexural and compressional modes. We
have demonstrated their efficient excitation using a
SAW-based device as important dips associated with
the dimer modes show in the transmission coeffi­
cient of the system. Performing a symmetry analysis
of the modes based on their w and v components,
we can deduce that out-of-phase flexural and in-
phase compressional modes should be optomechani­
cally active. The proposed dimer-based SAW-device
can be used for designing acousto-optic modulators
or ultrasensitive sensors.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the
authors.
ORCID
Adnane Noual http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1387-1000
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