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The propagation of surface elastic waves, or surface phonons, is considered along a linear and periodic chain of cylindrical pillars sitting on a semi-infinite solid substrate. A variety of guided modes, some of them exhibiting a very low group velocity, are shown to exist at frequencies close to the resonance frequencies of the pillars. Although the pillar diameter is typically smaller than half the relevant wavelength, lateral radiation on the surface is found to be canceled. Surface guidance is explained by the hybridization of the resonating pillars with the continuum of elastic waves of the substrate.

The possibility of surface wave generation by diffraction of pressure waves on deeply corrugated one-dimensional phononic crystal gratings is studied both theoretically and experimentally. Generation of leaky surface waves, indeed, is generally invoked in the explanation of the beam displacement effect that can be observed upon reflection on a shallow grating of an acoustic beam of finite width. True surface waves of the grating, however, have a dispersion that lies below the sound cone in water. They thus cannot satisfy the phase-matching condition for diffraction from plane waves of infinite extent incident from water. Diffraction measurements indicate that deeply corrugated one-dimensional phononic crystal gratings defined in a silicon wafer are very efficient diffraction gratings. They also confirm that all propagating waves detected in water follow the grating law. Numerical simulations however reveal that in the sub-diffraction regime, acoustic energy of a beam of finite extent can be transferred to elastic waves guided at the surface of the grating. Their leakage to the specular direction along the grating surface explains the apparent beam displacement effect.

We investigate modal conversion at the boundary between a homogeneous incident medium and a phononic crystal, with consideration of the impact of symmetry on the excitation of Bloch waves. We give a quantitative criterion for the appearance of deaf Bloch waves, which are antisymmetric with respect to a symmetry axis of the phononic crystal, in the frame of generalized Fresnel formulas for reflection and transmission at the phononic crystal boundary. This criterion is used to index Bloch waves in the complex band structure of the phononic crystal, for directions of incidence along a symmetry axis. We argue that within deaf frequency ranges transmission is multi-exponential, as it is within frequency band gaps.