Tunable Wave-Propagation Band gap via Stretching Kirigami Sheets

Abstract

This study examines Bragg's band gap and its mechanical tuning in a stretch-buckled kirigami sheet with ``zig-zag'' distributed parallel cuts. When stretched beyond a critical threshold, the kirigami buckles out of plane and generates a three-dimensional periodic architecture. Our theoretical calculation, numerical simulation, and experiments confirm the transverse elastic wave-propagation band gaps and their correlation to stretching. This result opens an avenue of using kirigami as a simple and effective approach for creating and adapting periodicity for wave-propagation control.